Introduction

Following the release of Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection Services in NSW in 2008, the NSW Government committed to implementing almost all the of the 111 recommendations in a five-year action plan called Keep Them Safe. The Government has also invested significantly in the plan with $750 million over five years. 

New system introduced

On 24 January 2010 the Children Legislation Amendment (Wood Inquiry Recommendations) Act 2009 was proclaimed. This means that the new child protection system is now in place.

New Threshold
From 24 January 2010 only reports that a child or young person is at "risk of significant harm" should be directed to the Community Services Child Protection Hotline. Where mandatory reporters have concerns for a child or young person that do not meet the significant harm threshold, they (or their agency) should offer and coordinate assistance to the child or young person, or make a referral to other services.

Mandatory Reporter Guide
The new Mandatory Reporter Guide, developed by the US Children's Research Center, is now available on the Keep Them Safe website. The guide has been designed for mandatory reporters to assist in determining whether concerns about a child or young person reach the new threshold of risk of significant harm and hence whether a report should be made to Community Services or other action taken.

Support Line for Non-Government Mandatory Reporters
The NSW Government has established a telephone support line to assist NGOs (including non-government schools) and General Practitioners with the changes under Keep Them Safe (KTS), specifically with the introduction of the new reporting threshold. It is called the KTS Support Line and is a transitional service for the first six months of the new system that will be reviewed to identify future need.

The Support Line will operate 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays), from 25 January 2010. The phone number is 1800 772 479.

Information Sharing
The new provisions relating to information exchange in the Children and Young People (Care and Protection) Act 1998 are in place.

These changes allow "prescribed bodies" to request information from other agencies that will assist in delivering the best and most appropriate services to children, young people and their families and also to get a better picture when considering the level of risk of harm a child or young person might face.

Prescribed bodies include agencies that conduct residential child care centre or a child care service and other organisations that have 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.

A number of resources to assist NGOs, including fact sheets and checklists have been developed and are available on the Keep Them Safe website.

Child Wellbeing Units (CWUs)
CWUs have been established and will be operational from 24 January in the four government agencies (NSW Police, Department of Education and Training, NSW Health and the Department of Human Services) that make up the largest percentage of child protection reports. Trained staff in CWUs will assist mandatory reporters to use the Mandatory Reporter Guide and ensure that all concerns that reach the threshold of risk of significant harm are reported to the Child Protection Helpline.

Where concerns do not meet the new threshold, information about the child or young person will be entered on the new CWU database, WellNet. This information will be visible to staff in other CWUs, which will assist in assessing cumulative risk of harm. CWU assessment officers will help mandatory reporters to identify services available within their own agency or in other organisations which could support the family.

Family Referral Services (formerly referred to as Regional Intake and Referral Services)
The service will be piloted over a 12-month period in Dubbo (UnitingCare Children, Young People, and Families), Mount Druitt (Relationships Australia) and Newcastle (The Benevolent Society). There will be two service models: a telephone referral service (Mt Druitt) and an augmented service (Dubbo and Newcastle) with capacity to conduct face-to-face referrals with some case management and access to support supplemented via the use of brokerage funding. The Dubbo service has an Indigenous focus. The three pilots will be thoroughly evaluated to determine the optimal service model for a state-wide roll-out.

A number of resources to assist NGOs, including fact sheets and checklists have been developed and are available on the Keep Them Safe website.

Ombudsman’s Report on Keep Them Safe

Updated: 31 August 2011
On 30 August 2011, the NSW Ombudsman released a Special Report to Parliament on the Keep Them Safe action plan. The report is the result of an inquiry examining whether Community Services’ capacity to adequately respond to children assessed as being at risk of significant harm has improved as a result of changes introduced through Keep Them Safe.

The NSW Ombudsman compared data provided by the Department of Family and Community Services from two time periods: new 24 January 2010 to 31 December 2010 (i.e. the new system) with 2006/07 data reported to the Wood Special Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection Services.

One of the intentions of the Keep Them Safe action plan was to reduce the number of inquiries to Helpline and to reduce the number of referrals from the Helpline to the Department or the Joint Investigative Response Team (JIRT). In this sense the change was successful. From the data provided, the Ombudsman reported that since the new system become operational on 24 January 2010, there has been:

• a 33 per cent drop in the number of child protection reports to the Helpline;
• a 53 per cent drop in the number of child protection reports sent by the Helpline to a local CSC or JIRT to investigate; and
• a three per cent increase in the number of child protection reports assigned the highest urgency rating by the Helpline (that is, a recommended response time of less than 24 hours).

However, since Keep Them Safe commenced, even though the number of child protection reports sent to a CSC or JIRT has halved, a significant number of matters were not allocated for a child protection response by a CSC and/or JIRT.

The Ombudsman stated that:

“… it is unacceptable that 25 per cent of all reports assessed by Community Services as indicating risk of significant harm received no response in the first 12 months of Keep Them Safe. All of these reports were closed on the basis of ‘competing priorities’.”

In response to the report the Minister for Family and Community Services, Pru Goward MP, recommitted the NSW Government to the promises made before the election, including:

• Transferring out-of-home care to the non-government sector, and reducing the number of children and young people in out-of-home care;
• Pursuing permanency in care arrangements through adoption, restoration to families, or transferring parental responsibility to family members or the Minister;
• Boosting accountability and transparency through measures such as completing the transfer of the Child Death Review Team to the NSW Ombudsman; and
• Integrating services for the most vulnerable in the community by harnessing the best from government and non-government sectors alike through working better and smarter.

NCOSS is keen to see a plan for the transfer out-of-home care to the non-government sector and is ready to offer assistance to the Government for permanency of care arrangements.  

Download: Ombudsman's report

Family Referral Services

Updated: 7 March 2011
On Thursday 3 March 2011, the Minister for Community Services, the Hon Linda Burney MP and the Deputy Premier and Minister for Health, the Hon Carmel Tebbut MP, announced two new Family Referral Services to commence in May 2011.

Pathfinders will operate the Family Referral Service based in Tamworth, servicing the New England North West region – including the local government areas of Tamworth, Walcha, Gunnedah, Tenterfield, Glen Innes, Guyra, Armidale, Dumaresq, Uralla, Inverell, Gwydir, Moree Plains, Narrabri and the communities of Tingha and Bundarra. The New England North West Region will have an Aboriginal focus, similar to the existing service in Dubbo.

Barnardos Australia will operate the Family Referral Service based in Wollongong, servicing the Illawarra region – including the local government areas of Wollongong, Shellharbour, Kiama, Shoalhaven and Wingecarribee.

Both these services will provide face-to-face referrals and some case coordination. There is also some brokerage funding for families to access to local services. NCOSS welcomes these announcements as the Family Referral Services are key elements to the new child protection/wellbeing system in NSW.

NCOSS looks forward to seeing additional Family Referral Services in other parts of the state in the not too distant future.

Keep Them Safe Annual Report released

Updated:  11 November 2010
The NSW Government has released the first Keep Them Safe Annual Report which documents progress against the Keep Them Safe Action Plan from March 2009 to June 2010.

The first Annual report shows significant progress in developing the ‘infrastructure’ of the new system including changes to the legislation, Child Well Being Units and some service enhancements. While significant progress has been made there is considerable work to be completed to achieve the reforms recommended by the report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection Services. NCOSS will provide commentary on progress made to June 2010 over the coming weeks.

Download:  Keep Them Safe Annual Report

Coalition for Children in Care

Updated:  17 September 2010
The Special Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection Services in NSW recommended that all children taken into the care of the State should be placed with non-government organisations (NGOs) rather than Community Services. The NSW Government has yet to implement this recommendation. NCOSS believes that a process and timetable should be developed to transfer out-of-home care services to the non-government sector. The Coalition for Children in Care was formed in 2010, following the NSW Government commissioning the Boston Consulting Group to consider the costs of out-of-home care.

The Coalition is made up of not for profit foster and residential care providers who share a vision to transform the out of home care system to promote a better life for children in care and a secure future when they leave it.

Further details: www.timetocare.org.au

Premier announces more Keep Them Safe initiatives

Updated: 29 March 2010
The NSW Government has announced an investment of $36 million over four years for early intervention and prevention programs:

• $18 million for parenting skills, general advice and support programs. This is for non-government organisations to help parents develop the skills to respond to children who are showing signs of difficult behaviours. It will focus on new parents with babies and toddlers and parents of adolescents.
• $10 million to run a new early intervention program for children from Kindergarten to Year 2 who have disruptive behaviours – Getting on Track in Time or ‘GOT It!’. Children and their parents participate in weekly group sessions with psychologists, mental health experts, and school staff for the duration of a school term. Based on a similar program that has run successfully in Victoria for six years, GOT It! will first be established in selected schools in Mount Druitt, Dubbo and Newcastle.
• $8 million to extend the Sustained Health Home Visiting program, increasing the number of families assisted by the program from 450 to 750. The program will give more parents with children aged 0-2 years access to at home visits by specialist child and family nurses who can identify problems early, and assist them in getting the services they need from the start of a child’s life.

This is part of the of $750 million being spent over five years to implement the Keep them Safe action plan.

Details of how the $18 million will be allocated to NGOs for parenting skills, general advice and support programs have yet to be announced.

NCOSS welcomes this announcement but calls on the Government to further invest in early intervention and prevention programs, especially in the non-government sector, to ensure that all children, young people and families receive the services and support they need.

Information:  http://www.keepthemsafe.nsw.gov.au/resources/media_and_speeches

Consultation on NGO capacity building and workforce development

Updated: 29 March 2010 
The NSW Government has engaged KPMG to develop a plan to build the capacity of the non-government sector and develop the child and family workforce as part of Keep Them Safe.

A discussion paper has been developed that identifies six key areas for focus:

1. Developing partnerships between NGOs and Government to support collaboration and planning
2. Aligning practice and services to outcomes
3. Reducing administrative burden to promote sector effectiveness and efficiency
4. Measuring outcomes and performance
5. Strengthening governance, management and leadership capacity
6. Building a workforce with the right skills.

Download: Discussion Paper Keep Them Safe:  A Shared Approach to Child Wellbeing

Consultation on the discussion paper has now finished. Further information will be provided as it becomes available.

Information Fora 

The Keep Them Safe peaks (AbSec, ACWA, Create Foundation, FaMs, LCSA, NCOSS and YAPA) will be holding a series of cross sector forum on the latest developments in the Keep Them Safe Action Plan specifically for peak organisations so that we can consider the issues and ramifications of the Action Plan and provide feedback through the various advisory groups established by Government.

Keeping Accountable

At a forum of non-government human service peak organisations, convened at NCOSS on 6 November 2009, it was agreed that a more systematic approach was needed to monitor and inform the implementation of the Action Plan. The Keeping Accountable campaign was launched. The campaign seeks to effectively keep track of, and contribute to, the progress of the Keep Them Safe Action Plan. This includes seeking enhancements to the plan where we feel there are gaps or changes required.

The Association of Children’s Welfare Agencies (ACWA) has developed a table mapping the Action Plan against the Wood Recommendations and the actual actions of the Government and non-government organisations to implement the Plan.

We are asking non-government peak organisations and service providers to contribute to the completion of the table by sending any information they have about the implementation of the plan.

A form is available on the ACWA website which can be downloaded, completed and sent to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .  As information is gathered and verified it will be placed in the table on the website.

Resources

• Keep Them Safe website:  www.keepthemsafe.nsw.gov.au

Information

• Dev Mukherjee, NCOSS Senior Policy Officer
  phone: 9211 2599, ext 116
  email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it