Accreditation and monitoring – December 2023

Code of Practice - Monitoring to renewal

The trial new approach to monitoring statutory out-of-home care and adoption services continues. Thank you for your feedback as we refine the new, streamlined process. We will be sending information about its progress and the final consultation on the Code of Practice in the New Year.

Sharing good practice

In May 2023 we circulated a survey with the newsletter. Many respondents said they wanted more information about accreditation criteria and how to apply these in practice, including case studies about good practice in statutory out-of-home care and adoption services.

During our assessments of agencies’ direct evidence (practice) we see many examples of good practice and provide feedback about this to agencies during or after the assessment. Agencies also ask us for guidance, ideas, suggestions about practice we have seen elsewhere in the sector.

When we see examples of good practice during our assessments, we will now be asking agencies if they are willing to share examples of their practice for the benefit of children and young people placed with other agencies.

Of course, any examples of good practice shared must consider context, as not all innovations will be transferrable to other settings and contexts.

The aim of sharing examples of good practice is to help deliver the best possible outcomes for children and young people in care and to inspire innovation and new solutions to the challenges of meeting their needs, well beyond minimum requirements.

We recently asked Orange Aboriginal Corporation Health Service if we could share an example of good practice we identified during assessment. The agency generously agreed - below is a story of their work.

Wise Practice, Proud Work

Orange Aboriginal Corporation Health Service, Out-of-Home Care Permanency Support Program, Yiriyirmbang (Yiri), is doing best practice work to support the restoration of a baby to his birth parents including developing a comprehensive policy and procedure, to support the continued breastfeeding by the birth mother.

The baby was assumed into statutory out-of-home care at birth and there are currently Interim Care Orders in place. While the matter is before the Children’s Court, Yiri are working with a foster carer as well as the baby’s grandmother, to share the care of him until such time as the grandmother feels confident enough to take over his care full time, and then until (hopefully), he is restored to his parents.

The infant was 2 days old when he came to Yiri. The mother had stated that she really wanted to breastfeed her baby but the Department of Communities and Justice did not support this because of her history of methamphetamine and alcohol misuse.

However, Yiri was committed to making this happen for her if it was possible, so they undertook research and contacted the Australian Breastfeeding Association and the Infectious Diseases Unit and developed a specific and very comprehensive policy and set of protocols to support mum, the carer and the grandmother. It is a complex and sensitive piece of work. The agency has had to educate mum and dad, the carer and the grandmother to learn about safe expressing, handling and storage of expressed breast milk. Mum is required to undertake mandatory screening 3 times per week and her urine is also tested before breastfeeding. The carer and the grandmother also test her expressed breast milk prior to feeding the baby and provide evidence of the clear screens to the agency.

In their commitment to empower this mother and her wishes, Yiri went to great lengths to develop a policy and clear protocols (which also include undertakings by the mother and carers), specific to supporting a mother to breastfeed. Yiri was willing to find a way for this mother to do something that they recognised was so important to her and to her baby, while also ensuring the safety of the baby– not just because her breastmilk is so important to him so early on, but because the bonding and attachment this promotes is critical.

If your agency is interested to find out more, you can contact Orange Aboriginal Corporation Health Service by email to discuss on an individual basis at yiri@oams.net.au

Interstate placements and the Carers Register

We often receive enquires from agencies about interstate placements. Sometimes a child or young person who is under the parental responsibility of the NSW Minister for Families and Communities and Minister for Disability Inclusion, may be living in a foster, relative or kinship care placement in another jurisdiction. Where this occurs, the designated agency who is responsible for that child or young person has obligations to meet. A new guidance document about Interstate placements and registration requirements is now available on our website. This will help designated agencies meet Carers Register entry requirements in these circumstances. Please contact carers-register@ocg.nsw.gov.au if you have any questions.

Information for carers – the accreditation process

We have published a new resource for carers that explains how we accredit and monitor out-of-home care agencies. It summarises the accreditation criteria against which agencies are assessed, how agencies must comply with the Carers Register requirements and other resources available for carers on our website.

Information for carers – the accreditation process (PDF, 317.18KB) is available on our website.

Residential Care Workers Register update

A few key reminders are noted below for all agencies.

WWCC verifications

WWCC verifications for residential care workers must be done via the RCWR. The worker record will then display the status as at the last verification.

A WWCC Verification Task is created when a WWCC is due to expire in 6 weeks and an email notification is sent to the agency’s WWCC Alert email as a reminder. The agency must reverify the WWCC for the individual prior to expiry, to ensure the worker can continue to be engaged as a residential care worker. The task must also be actioned and closed before it will be removed from the agency’s work queue. There are currently outstanding tasks in this work queue, so we encourage all agencies to review and action those still visible.

If an agency has not reverified a WWCC for a worker and this expires, this will display in the Dashboard report, Expired WWCC. Where this occurs, we will follow up directly with agencies to discuss non-compliance in this area.

Detailed information on managing WWCC verifications via the RCWR (PDF, 878.46KB) is included in this user guide.

Alert emails

Every agency nominated 4 emails to be linked with the Alerts at the time of initial registration. The agency is responsible to ensure these are monitored and remain current, so that notifications sent to the agency are received and actioned. The Primary Administrator must update those emails if required. As a reminder, the 4 Alert emails are:

• WWCC alerts
• General alerts
• Reportable Allegation alerts
• Information exchange

The purpose of each alert (PDF, 217.02KB) is outlined in this user guide.

Changes in RCWR users

Each agency must keep track of the user accounts created to access and manage the RCWR. It is essential that the agency’s Primary Administrator is current as this is the contact used by our office. If an employee leaves the agency or no longer requires access to the RCWR, the user account must be end dated.

The Primary and General administrator user guide (PDF, 1.30MB) includes details of each of the user types and instructions on how to create and end date users.

Data remediation or issues

If there are any questions or concerns with how to manage the RCWR or its functionality, please contact us by email residential-register@ocg.nsw.gov.au

Your agency’s Conditions of Accreditation

When the NSW Children’s Guardian accredits an agency, we issue several documents including a Notice of Conditions of Accreditation. You can view a copy of your agency’s Notice of Conditions on our website’s list of accredited agencies.

Notices of Conditions of Accreditation issued since September 2022 display only conditions that are additional to the general conditions in Schedule 3 and Schedule 5 of the Children’s Guardian Regulation 2022. Most notices are relatively brief showing only the types of services the agency is accredited to provide (foster care, residential care, adoption services).

There is more information about Conditions of Accreditation on our website.

What your agency needs to do

During our assessments, we seek evidence of compliance with all Conditions of Accreditation relevant to your agency.

Accredited agencies must ensure practice complies with their Notice of Conditions as well as the general conditions in Schedule 3 (for designated agencies) and Schedule 5 (for adoption agencies) of the Regulation.

Guidelines for the disclosure of placement information

Section 149B-K of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 provides a framework for providing placement information to parents and others significant to children and young people in care.

Our guidelines to assist agencies to manage the disclosure of placement information (PDF, 161.47KB) have been revised and are available on our website on our Resources page. The guidelines also include sharing information regarding the progress of children and young people in care, in accordance with requirements of section 163 of the Act.

You will see that page 3 of the guidelines references the Code of Practice which is anticipated to be effective in 2025.

There is more information about the Code of Practice on our website