Hi KK19,
Like Kazvan mentioned you should be able to find this information in the Child Protection policy. Just in case you don't have access to one I'll add it below:
The Children & Young Persons (Care & Protection) Act 1998 Section 27 Mandatory Reporting applies to:
a) a person who, in the course of his or her professional work or other paid employment delivers health care, welfare, education, children’s services, residential services, or law enforcement, wholly or partly to children
b) a person who holds a management position in an organisation the duties of which include direct responsibility for, or direct supervision of, the provision of health care, welfare, education, children’s services, residential services, or law enforcement, wholly or partly, to children If:
a) a person to whom this section applies has reasonable grounds to suspect that a child is at risk of harm, and
b) those grounds arise during the course of or from a person’s work the person must, as soon as practicable, report to the Director-General the name, or a description, of the child and the grounds for suspecting that the child is at risk of harm.
All children’s services staff and carers are mandatory reporters. A mandatory reporter is someone who is required by law to make a report to the Department of Community Services (DoCS) if they have current concerns about the safety, welfare or wellbeing of a child (under 16 years). There are penalties for failing to make a report.
A report is made when a person contacts DoCS to inform them of concerns for the safety, welfare or well being of a child or young person. You should make a report to DoCS if you suspect a child is at risk of harm – that is you have current concerns about the safety, welfare or well being of a child or young person. You don’t need to be certain, you only need to make sure your concerns
are well founded and based on information you know or have from a reliable source.
Procedures for Reporting a Child at Risk of Harm
a) Document your concerns and/or the allegation
b) Inform your service Director/Coordinator
c) Director/Coordinator to inform Manager Children’s Services (MCS).
d) MCS to notify Director of Corporate Services, to notify General Manager
e) Staff member or Director/Coordinator report to the DoCS help line for mandatory reporters (13 36 27). Be prepared with details regarding the child and family
f) Families of children involved in a report may or may not be informed. This will depend on each individual situation and the safety, welfare and well being of the child is the most important determining factor. Sound professional judgement needs to be used in this process and the final decision whether to inform family members will be made in consultation with the centre
director/coordinator .
g) Maintain confidential file of information regarding the child, the incident, your concerns, and reports made
h) Maintain confidentiality of all parties at all times
If for any reason a staff member is unable to approach their director/coordinator, they need to contact the Manager Children’s Services.
Where a person makes an allegation but says they don’t want it to go any further, they should be advised that you are legally obliged to act on certain information. If you receive an allegation you are required to report this to DoCS if you believe the child is at risk of harm.
Families and other members of the community may also report concerns regarding a child’s welfare to DoCS. The General Public DoCS help line number is 13 21 11.
Hopefully this should provide you with the information you need for this assignment.
Also, I would just like to remind you that when adding the topic heading to include the module number and the assignment question in the title. Please refer to our forum rules for further information.
Can you please tell me the module number for this assignment so I can edit the topic heading.
Cheers
,
L.A