Sharing responsibility for children's safety and wellbeing of Queensland children
Queensland Government reforms being delivered under this strategic direction are based on the principles that:
- caring for children and keeping them safe is a shared responsibility
- stakeholders across the child and family system jointly lead the design, development and delivery of services.
The reforms include:
- accepting the Queensland Child Protection Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations and committing $421 million in funding to implement the reforms (recommendation 15.1)
- incorporating the required contributions to child safety reform agenda into Ministerial Charter Letters (recommendation 12.1)
- establishing a governance model, including non-government representation at key levels and nine Regional Child and Family Committees across the state to drive the reform agenda from the ground up and ensure enduring community partnerships (recommendations 4.13, 6.2, 12.4, 12.12)
- establishing and appointing a Principal Commissioner and Commissioner to the Queensland Family and Child Commission to provide oversight of Queensland’s child protection system and partner with other government and non-government agencies to ensure that best practice services are being delivered to children and families (recommendation 12.3)
- establishing the Queensland Family and Child Commission Advisory Council, made up of a panel of experts in the field of family support and child protection, to support the development of collaborative partnerships (recommendation 6.3)
- implementing a public education and social marketing campaign, Talking Families, to encourage parents and families to talk about the pressures of parenting and to seek and accept help when they need it (recommendation 1.1)
- incorporating a single case plan model into the new Intensive Family Support services being rolled out progressively across Queensland (recommendation 5.7)
- developing an engagement strategy to hear the voices of children, families, the community and our partners in planning and implementing the reforms
- partnering with Queensland Foster and Kinship Care to engage with carers across Queensland, as part of the Partners in Care engagement strategy, to hear directly from foster and kinship carers about improving the care system
- collaborative case management takes a coordinated approach to responding to a family's needs to ensure the family gets the right support at the right time from a number of services (recommendation 5.7)
- central and regional governance to oversee the reform program and promote strong collaborative partnerships across the government and non-government sectors (recommendation 6.2).