Responses to questions raised in the matters of concern practice development day training

Can a community visitor act as the child's support person or advocate during the assessment of a child placement concern report, or during the investigation and assessment of a matter of concern notification?

The Commission for Children and Young People and Child Guardian has provided advice that a child's community visitor cannot act as a child's support person or advocate during meetings or interviews specifically associated with the assessment of matters of concern.

Community visitors will however, during the course of their usual visits to a visitable site or a visitable home, support and assist the child by promoting and protecting their rights, interests and well-being during the course of the departmental assessment of the matter of concern.

The 'Information sheet for children and young people', linked as a resource to the Child Safety Practice Manual, has been revised to reflect the advice provided by the Commission for Children and Young People and Child Guardian.

Where, as a result of a matter of concern, a decision is made to review an approved carer's or staff member's suitability, when and how does the licensed care service nominee and/or the CSSC Manager inform the department's Central Screening Unit of the outcome of the review of suitability?

If following the review of the approved carer's suitability (as a result of the outcome of a matter of concern), the Child Safety Service Centre (CSSC) manager decides to suspend or cancel the approved carer's Certificate of Approval, the CSSC manager is responsible for notifying the Central Screening Unit of the suspension or cancellation.

Where a licensed care service decides that an employee is no longer considered to be a suitable person, the service is required to advise the departmental Community Support Team who will, in turn, advise the Central Screening Unit.

Licensing condition five on the licence issued to a licensed care service also states that the 'nominee must notify the Department of Child Safety of changes to the child protection, domestic violence and traffic infringement histories of all persons engaged by the service in regulated employment, whether the employment is paid or voluntary'.

Can a licensed care service employee (who is not in the role of providing direct care to children, for example, a team leader or manager who supervises youth workers who provide 'direct care' to children in the placement) be recorded in a matter of concern as a person responsible for the breach of standards and/or harm or risk of harm to a child?

It would not be normal practice to record a team leader, manager or other supervisory person employed by the service as a person responsible, where they do not provide direct care to a child in the placement.

In circumstances where multiple employees are responsible (for example, during various shifts) for providing direct care to a child and a matter of concern arises however it is not clear which employee/s may have breached the statement of standards, all adults responsible for the provision of direct care would be recorded in the matter of concern and spoken with regarding the matter of concern. If at the conclusion of the assessment, it is still unclear as to which 'direct care' employee/s were responsible for the breach of standards and/or harm/risk of harm, the person responsible would be recorded in ICMS as 'unknown'.

The team leader or manager of these direct care employees would not be recorded as the 'person responsible' by default, simply because the direct care employee/s responsible for the breach of standards and/or harm/risk of harm could not be identified during the assessment.

In exceptional circumstances, a supervisor (with no direct care responsibilities to a child) of the staff who provide direct care may be considered as a person responsible. For example, if the supervisor gave direction to the direct care staff that the direct care staff were to implement behaviour management strategies that are inconsistent with the statement of standards and the direct care staff implemented the advice of the supervisor, thereby breaching the statement of standards, the supervisor and the direct care staff would all be considered during the assessment as potential persons responsible for the breach of standards and/or harm/risk of harm.

In such cases however the departmental manager or senior practitioner would be advised to seek advice from the departmental Matters of Concern Review Unit.

If a person employed in a licensed care service becomes aware, or reasonably suspects, that harm has been caused to a child placed in the care of a licensed care service (and the harm appears to involve the commission of a criminal offence), is the person or the licensed care service responsible for notifying the QPS, or should the person/licensed care service notify the department (who will then contact and notify the QPS)?

While the Child Protection Act 1999 does not require the employee or the licensed care service to report harm or suspected harm directly to the Queensland Police Service (QPS), the licensed care service will often have a process in place that requires its employees to report directly to the QPS.

When the employee or licensed care service directly reports concerns to the QPS, the report of harm or suspected harm must still be made to the department by the employee or licensed care service (this is a requirement under section 148 of the Child Protection Act 1999 ). The report to the department should be made to the department as close as possible to the time it is made to the QPS.

Alternatively, the licensed care service may only require that the department be provided with the report, at which time the department becomes responsible for reporting to the QPS (in accordance with section 14(2) of the Child Protection Act 1999 ).

How will the licensed care service know that a CPCR has been assessed as 'no beach of standards' when the procedures do not require that a letter (advising of this outcome) is provided to the service? Are there implications for the service's licence if the service is not verbally informed by the department of this outcome?

Procedure 9.2 Assessing a child placement concern report (CPCR), requires the Child Safety Officer (CSO) to verbally inform the licensed care service of the CPCR outcome, when the outcome is assessed as 'no breach of standards'.

The Licensing of Care Services Unit, Quality Assurance Branch, Department of Child Safety, has advised that the only expectation on licensed care services (should they not be contacted by the CSO and verbally advised of the 'no breach of standards' outcome) would be that the service is able to demonstrate that they attempted to obtain advice of the outcome from the department.

Given that the assessment of a CPCR is to be completed within 6 weeks of the Manager's decision to record a CPCR, the licensed care service could implement a bring up system to check whether it has been contacted at the end of the assessment process and informed of the CPCR outcome.

Clarification regarding information sharing between CSO and placement coordination units/teams or 'placement officers'.

The matters of concern procedures require the Child Safety Officer (CSO) to liaise with other departmental officers (for example, the alternative care support worker for the approved carer, all CSOs who have children placed with the approved carer subject to the matter of concern etc.) at various points throughout the matters of concern process.

While the procedures do not specifically mention all departmental positions that may need to know about and/or have important information to contribute to the matters of concern assessment (for example, placement coordinators, other departmental officers responsible for locating placements/assessing applications for approval/renewal etc.), it is necessary that the CSO shares relevant information regarding the matter of concern with these departmental officers, as well as those officers specifically outlined in the procedures.

If a CSSC manager is not available to decide whether concerns raised about the quality of care constitute a matter of concern and if so, the level of response (for example, a child placement concern report or a matter of concern notification), can the CSSC manager delegate this decision to the senior practitioner?

The Child Safety Service Centre (CSSC) manager is responsible for deciding whether concerns raised about the quality of care provided to a child in out-of-home care constitute a matter of concern.

The CSSC manager must make the decision within two working days from the receipt of the information provided by the notifier.

If the CSSC manager is not going to be available in person, verbally or via email, to make this decision within two working days, the CSSC Manager is not able to delegate this decision to the senior practitioner. The decision must be made by another CSSC manager in the zone, or by the zonal director.

It is the responsibility of the CSSC manager, should they not be available to make such decisions within the two working day period, to advise CSSC staff of their preferred decision-making process.