Care and protection of children

Content
• Childcare and protection
Analysis
• identify and investigate these contemporary issues involving the provision of shelter and
evaluate the effectiveness of legal and non- legal responses to these issues

Intro • legal and non-legal responses à effective to a certain extent

• legal and non-legal are dependent on one another therefore both are required to
maintain care and protection of children
• often non-legal measures have to compensate for the slowness of law reform
• focus of legal and non-legal mechanisms
- safeguarding the health and wellbeing of children
- protecting rom violence or abuse
- mandatory reporting of concerns to Community Services

Context • CROC art.28 – state parties must ensure that all “legislative measures
necessary for a child’s care and protection must take into account “duties of his
or her parents upholding essential principles of equality and education is free
and mandatory”
• ICCPR family à fundamental group unit of society
• Legal responses (i.e. amendments) aim to:
- Improve early intervention service
- Introduce parental capacity orders
- Allows adopted children to maintain a connection w/ biological parent

Reporting • LCMDI
- ‘Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 (NSW)’
à focus = safeguarding the health and wellbeing of children
à encourages reporting s.27 duty to report a child at risk of significant harm
à teachers, doctors, nurses and other professionals must report
à Chp 5 Children’s Crt makes orders for child to be cared for if abused
- Tanilla Deaves 2011 à 2yr old tortured and murdered by her mothers
boyfriend despite a relative reporting the matter to NSW Family and
Community Service 33 times
- Minister for F & C Services Pry Goward stated that “reform takes time”
• CRITIQUE
- Highlights lack of responsiveness w/in family law system
- Limited access to justice
• NON-LEGAL
- Child Protection Helpline
à Set up by Community Services NSW
à Enables easy access to report any child at risk of harm à caseworker
then makes an assessment to determine the extent of the risk
- Child Protection National Minimum Data Set 2013 à standardised reporting
procedures, enabled more comprehensive collection of data
• CRITIQUE
- reduces the amount of administrative work and call load on Helpline
- aims to improve accessibility and protection of children
- HOWEVER system has been criticised as acting too slowly à increasing no.
of people under 18 have been placed on care and protection orders
1. Improve individuals’ rights à greater awareness of rights – seek ADVOS
to protect themselves and their children from harm
2. Support and counselling services provided to perpetrators have been
insufficient in modifying abusive behaviours
Collaborative • a significant criticism of the family law system is the lack of consistency b/w the
responses sectors therefore responses to childcare and protection have focussed largely in
a collaborative responses b/w law making bodies, community services police,
courts and non-government organisations
• LCMDI
- ‘Children Legislation Amendment (Wood Inquiry Recommendations) Act 2009
(NSW)’
à increased reporting threshold to ‘risk of significant harm’
à Increased cooperation/info shared by authorities
- ‘Child Protection Legislation Amendment Act 2014 (NSW)’ à s.8 – permanent
placement principles
• CRITIQUE
- Increased access to justice
- 2018 report by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare à notifications
increased by 39%, 50% of notifications were investigated

• NSW State Agency – Joint Child Protection Response (JCPR) Program

- collaborative à NSW Police, Family and Community Services and Health
- joint investigations of statuary child protection that require criminal justice
response
- supports vulnerable children and young people à coordinated safety, justice
and health responses