Since authorised carers are considered to be employees under the Ombudsman Act 1974 (S25A) any allegation of reportable conduct and the findings of the agency's investigation should be notified to the NSW Ombudsman. Concerns about reportable conduct by authorised carers towards any child/young person in out of home care should also be reported to the Child Protection Helpline.
An Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) is an order made by a court that restricts the behaviour of the person against whom the order has been made. The purpose of an AVO is to protect a person from violence, harassment or intimidation in the future. An AVO usually states that a person cannot assault, harass, threaten, stalk or intimidate another person, or go within a certain distance of his/her home or workplace. Other orders can be included if necessary. In NSW there are two types of AVOs:
Attachment is an emotional bond to another person. Psychologist John Bowlby was the first attachment theorist, describing attachment as a ‘lasting psychological connectedness between human beings’ (Bowlby, 1969). Bowlby believed that the earliest bonds formed by children with their caregivers have a tremendous impact that continues throughout life.
Age 0–15 years. As a mandatory reporter in NSW, you are required to report concerns that you have about the safety, welfare or well-being of a child.
Child pornography2 is material that depicts or describes (or appears to depict or describe), in a manner that would in all circumstances cause offence to reasonable people, a person who is (or appears to be) a child:
a. Engaged in sexual activity;
b. In a sexual context; or
c. As the victim of torture, cruelty or physical abuse (whether or not in a sexual context).
(2 Division 15A Child Pornography (91H) of the NSW Crimes Act 1900 defines a child as under 18 years.)
Child prostitution3 is any sexual service, whether or not involving an indecent act:
a. That is provided by a child (under the age of 18 years) for the payment of money or the provision of any other material thing (whether or not it is in fact paid or provided to the child/young person or to any other person);
b. That can reasonably be considered as aimed at the sexual arousal or sexual gratification of a person or persons other than the child/young person; and
c. Includes (but is not limited to) sexual activity between persons of different sexes or the same sex, comprising sexual intercourse (as defined in section 61H) for payment or masturbation committed by one person or another for payment engaged in by a child.
(3 Division 15 Child Prostitution (91C) of the NSW Crimes Act 1900 defines a child as under 18 years. )
Two or more children or young people (Section 27(3) Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998
Cognitive delay usually refers to a developmental lag, meaning that an individual’s cognitive abilities do not match the expectations for his/her chronological age. It is a term most often used in describing children. Because children continue to grow and develop cognitively, it is not always clear whether or not they will catch up with respect to the delay. Sometimes development lags because of illness or malnutrition or other environmental factors and when the situation is rectified, the cognitive abilities rebound. However, it is also possible for delays to become permanent, in which case they are probably better thought of as an impairment or disability, although the term ‘delay’ is sometimes still used.
A designated agency in NSW is an agency accredited in accordance with the regulations under the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 to provide out-of-home care services, and includes Community Services and Ageing, Disability and Home Care.
In relation to reporting allegations against employees (as per the NSW Ombudsman Act 1974) designated agencies are the following:
Further information is available on the Ombudsman website at http://www.ombo.nsw.gov.au/complaints/compwrkchildprotissues.html
Developmental milestones are a set of functional skills or age-specific tasks that most children can do at a certain age range, and which are used to check on children’s development. Although each milestone has an age level, the actual age when a normally developing child reaches that milestone can vary.
A booklet entitled A Guide to Children’s Growth and Development is available on the Community Services website at http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/docswr/_assets/main/documents/par_development.pdf
Domestic violence refers to incidents of violence occurring in the family household where a child/young person is living.
eReporting is a secure and convenient channel for reporting non-imminent suspected risk of significant harm reports to Community Services over the internet. This reporting method improves mandatory reporter accessibility to the Child Protection Helpline, and improves the quality of information reported through its structured template.
A household member is any child/young person and adult who lives in a home, and all adults who have significant (regular and/or frequent) in-home contact with the child/young person, including those who have a familial or intimate relationship with any person in the home.
A care arrangement of a child/young person with an individual acting in a private capacity, is not, alone, grounds for a risk of significant harm report. However, whilst parents may relinquish care of their child/children to relatives or others without going through a formal process, such carers may have difficulty accessing assistance and/or dealing with services or other institutions, such as Births, Deaths and Marriages, Medicare and Centrelink.
Possible offences under the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 2008 apply in relation to providing or arranging statutory, supported or voluntary care, as defined under the Act but these categories do not include private care arrangements. A report to Community Services and/or the Police is appropriate if it is suspected that the placement contravenes the Care legislation. Similarly adoption is a formal process governed by the Adoption Act 2000. Private adoptions are illegal and reportable to Community Services and/or Police.
A mandatory reporter in NSW is an individual required by under Section 27 of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 to report to the Child Protection Helpline when he/she has reasonable grounds to suspect that a child, or a class of children, is at risk of significant harm from abuse or neglect, and those grounds arise during the course of or from the person’s work.
Mandatory reporters include those who deliver the following services wholly or partly to children as part of their paid or professional work:
The NSW legislation also mandates any person who manages an employee or volunteer from the above services to report suspected risk of significant harm.
Agencies will generally have internal policies setting out the requirements for employees and their managers who are mandated reporters to report concerns about children. Some agency policies (such as Ministry of Health) require non-mandated reporters to report to the Child Protection Helpline, so practitioners should be familiar with the legislation as well as their agency’s policy on reporting suspected risk of significant harm.
Failure to thrive (also called psychosocial failure to thrive) is defined as decelerated or arrested physical growth (height and weight measurements fall below the fifth percentile, or there is a downward change in growth across two major growth percentiles) associated with poor developmental and emotional functioning. Organic failure to thrive occurs when there is an underlying medical cause. NOFTT occurs in a child who is usually younger than 2 years old and has no known medical condition that causes poor growth.
Psychological, social or economic problems within the family almost always play a role in the cause of NOFTT. Emotional or maternal deprivation is often related to nutritional deprivation. The mother or primary carer may neglect proper feeding of the infant because of preoccupation with the demands or care of others, her own emotional problems, substance abuse, lack of knowledge about proper feeding or lack of understanding of the infant’s needs. Organic failure to thrive is caused by medical complications of premature birth or other illnesses that interfere with feeding and normal bonding activities between parents and infants.
A biological or adoptive parent, legal guardian or any other adult with parental responsibility for meeting basic physical (such as food, clothing, shelter, supervision, and medical care) and emotional needs, and responding to the behaviour of a child/young person in his/her care.
This includes young people who are biological parents of a child, as well as, for example, authorised foster and kinship carers and informal private care arrangements (see Glossary), but does not include those who are either paid or unpaid in positions such as, for example, baby sitters, family day care providers, pre-school, vacation care or youth camp workers.Reportable conduct refers to the following:
Reportable conduct does not extend to the following:
Note.
Examples of conduct that would not constitute reportable conduct include (without limitation) touching a child in order to attract a child’s attention, to guide a child or to comfort a distressed child; a school teacher raising his or her voice in order to attract attention or to restore order in the classroom; and conduct that is established to be accidental.
Further information is available on the Ombudsman website at http://www.ombo.nsw.gov.au/complaints/compwrkchildprotissues.html
Members of the community and mandatory reporters who suspect that a child or young person is at ‘risk of significant harm’ (the statutory threshold) should report their concerns to the Child Protection Helpline. This new statutory threshold has replaced ‘risk of harm’ in the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998.
A child or young person is at risk of significant harm if the circumstances that are causing concern for the safety, welfare or well-being of the child or young person are present to a significant extent.
What is meant by ‘significant’ in the phrase ‘to a significant extent’ is that which is sufficiently serious to warrant a response by a statutory authority irrespective of a family’s consent.
What is significant is not minor or trivial, and may reasonably be expected to produce a substantial and demonstrably adverse impact on the child or young person’s safety, welfare or well-being.
In the case of an unborn child, what is significant is not minor or trivial, and may reasonably be expected to produce a substantial and demonstrably adverse impact on the child after the child’s birth.
The significance can result from a single act or omission or an accumulation of these.
Age 16–17 years. As a mandatory reporter in NSW, you may also report concerns you have about the safety, welfare, or well-being of a young person, but are not required to do so.