Noticably, a number of the Australian Childcare Alliance NSW's member service providers have been asking for assistance with their educators/teachers/staff who have been called for jury duty, citing both the staff's preference not to serve as well as the service provider's challenge to replace staff while on jury duty given the broad labour shortages of educators and teachers.

Perhaps the higher than usual number of calls from the NSW Department of Justice for educators/teachers to be jurors is because of the inherent and undeniable trustworthiness of such individuals.

That said, members of the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW can download the following templates to make it easier for staff to apply to be excused from jury duty, should that be their choice:

• a template letter from the staff member to The Sheriff, NSW Department of Justice; and
• a template supporting letter from the employer service provider to The Sheriff, NSW Department of Justice.

ACA NSW members can also receive a customised supporting letter from ACA NSW providing further official Federal Government and NSW Government evidence of the challenges faced by service providers to recruit staff. The customised letter from ACA NSW produced will be specific for the member's individual staff.

Click here to the Members-only section to download any/all of these three template letters and supporting documents.