Two and a half years ago, Nick Cantoni couldn’t tell his executive team how many incidents occurred across Catholic Education Northern Territory’s schools. Paper forms weren’t making it to the office, let alone providing insights. Today, he identifies behavioral patterns, allocates resources based on real-time data, and confidently reports safety performance across 17 schools.
Nick Cantoni is the Work Health and Safety Manager for Catholic Education Northern Territory (CENT). What started as a 1Place implementation for their early learning centres has grown into a system-wide solution covering ELCs, out-of-school hours care programs, preschools, and full school operations. We sat down with Nick to understand how 1Place transformed their approach to safety and compliance.

How did Catholic Education NT first start with 1Place?

We’ve been with 1Place for about 2.5 years since joining with CENT. It was brought in primarily for the ELCs, and then we ramped it up to include our OSHCs, preschools, and now it’s across our full system. We have 17 schools using it. We’ve probably upscaled what it was designed for, and we’ve been really supported by the team at 1Place in doing that.

What was safety reporting like before 1Place?

One of the big things about having paper forms was they weren’t even making it to the office. Before, I couldn’t tell anyone in the executive how many incidents there were in the last 12 months. We had no visibility into what was actually happening across our sites.

What’s changed since implementing 1Place?

Now I can go straight away and say, this is where we’re having issues. We had X amount of incidents last year. We’re improving, we’re not improving. What we’ve been able to do is identify hotspots in our operations where we can now say, we need to divert some of our funding to help alleviate those issues schools are facing, or what strategies we need to implement.

You mentioned identifying patterns. Can you give an example?

Being able to look at an incident report and go, I remember seeing that name a few weeks ago. Then you look and it’s a different teacher, maybe a different student involved in the same type of incident. What’s the common factor here? Is it the student’s behaviour, or is it potentially the staff behaviour where maybe they’re not fully across a behavioural management plan for that student? Before, we weren’t really looking at the behavioural aspects potentially driving some of the incidents with our students. Now we can see those patterns and intervene.

How has your team responded to the platform?

One of the really good things is that we’ve moved away from doing stuff in the portal to being in the app. Everything’s in the app now, so everything marries up. We operate off QR codes for incident reporting so staff can access it without having to be on a computer. They just scan a QR code, log in, and they’re good to go. It’s really helpful to be able to present off my computer in training sessions and say, this is exactly how it looks on your phone.

Have you seen changes in reporting culture?

From a culture point of view, there was probably under-reporting initially. We’ve actually only increased about 8% from last year to this year in total incidents. But people are comfortable to report now. I’ve actually had a paper cut reported with photos. That was about a month after we started the rollout and were encouraging people to report. To me, it’s a good talking point because at least someone reported they had an incident. That shows the cultural shift happening.

What impact are you seeing on actual safety outcomes?

Even with an 8% increase in reporting, we’ve seen a decrease in the number of first aid visits, doctor visits, and ED visits. We’re getting more minor incident reports and we’re at a stage where we’re actually getting a lot of “no injury” reports. The severity is lessening. People say, “Do I need to report it?” And I say yes, because that comfort with reporting is exactly what we want. It’s about changing the culture within the organisation.

What’s been most valuable about having this data?

The ability to move from reactive to proactive. I can support executive decision-making with real data. We can understand root causes instead of just counting incidents. We can see where funding needs to go, where staff might need additional training on behavioural management plans, and where we’re actually improving. That visibility changes everything.

Catholic Education NT’s journey shows what’s possible when safety data moves from paper chaos to digital clarity. From classroom to boardroom, everyone now has the visibility they need to protect students, support staff, and make informed decisions. That’s multi-level protection in action.

Interested in learning how 1Place can transform safety and compliance in your organisation? Visit http://www.1placechildcare.com or contact our team.