Updates for statutory out-of-home care agencies from the Accreditation and Monitoring team.
Welcome Steve Kinmond OAM, our new Children’s Guardian
Steve Kinmond's term as the Children's Guardian began on 16 January 2023. You will likely know Steve from his previous roles in child protection and community services. He brings a wealth of experience to the role, including as former CEO of Association of Children's Welfare Agencies (ACWA), NSW Deputy Ombudsman and Community and Disability Services Commissioner.
Among the things Steve has been exploring as Children’s Guardian, is setting up a community of practice in the out-of-home care sector. He is also looking to establish a carer representative group from community and government agencies to consider what we can do better for vulnerable children and young people in NSW.
Steve’s first few months in the role have been busy connecting with people across sectors to hear about what’s important to them and ways we can work to strengthen our practices.
Farewell Richard Weston Deputy Children’s Guardian
Richard Weston has left the Office of the Children’s Guardian, to take up the role of CEO at Maari Ma in Broken Hill. He made a significant contribution during his time as Deputy Children’s Guardian from January 2021 to February 2023 including as the Acting Children’s Guardian for 3 months in 2022.
His contribution sets an important precedent for having a senior Aboriginal leader in this position that supports children’s safety across our community.
Two major achievements in his term included his special report on the Family is Culture review in ensuring ongoing focus on addressing Aboriginal over-representation in out-of-home care, and his work within the Office of the Children’s Guardian to consolidate and improve initiatives to be a more culturally competent regulator.
We wish Richard all the best in his future work in the community.
Update on the review of accreditation and monitoring
Code of Practice and Child Safe Standards
You may recall from previous newsletters and correspondence, that our office undertook a comprehensive review of the Children’s Guardian’s accreditation and monitoring functions, prior to these functions transferring into the Children’s Guardian Act 2019 and Regulation.
In 2021 and 2022, we sought the sector’s views on options to bring designated agencies and adoption service providers into the NSW child safe scheme. This includes replacing the existing accreditation criteria (the NSW Child Safe Standards for Permanent Care) with the Child Safe Standards and a sector-specific code of practice. There was broad support for the proposal and in late 2022 we sought feedback from the sector on proposed content for a code of practice, to support implementation of the Child Safe Standards.
The code of practice will ultimately be set out in the Children’s Guardian Regulation 2022 and we are currently working with Parliamentary Counsel’s Office to prepare a draft code, for further sector consultation. In the coming months, the draft code will be circulated in the sector for further comment.
The consultation processes also provided an important opportunity for us to hear about agencies’ experiences of the accreditation and monitoring scheme. While there were a range of views and experiences, there were some consistent messages which have informed changes to the way we regulate the sector.
We will soon be trialling a new approach to how we regulate the sector.
The new approach will focus on agencies’ quality assurance and continuous improvement systems, with less time spent onsite reviewing agency care records for children and young people. This will mean we will have more regular contact with agencies during the accreditation cycle, but our engagements will be briefer and will focus on systems that support practice. It will also mean that accreditation renewal processes will be briefer and for some agencies, there will not be a need for onsite accreditation renewal assessments.
In March, we mailed to all agency Principal Officers a factsheet setting out the new approach. This work is still in development, and we will test this approach with some agencies in the coming months. We will continue to update the sector on this work as it progresses and will seek feedback on agencies’ experiences of the new process.
Residential Care Workers Register updates
The RCWR has now been live for nearly 9 months. Thank you to all agencies for the work that has been completed in that time. As a new system, it is understood that agencies will continue to refine their internal processes to support practice. A few key reminders are noted below for all agencies. The team can be contacted by email at residential-register@ocg.nsw.gov.au
Back capture now completed
All back capture entries have now been completed. If your agency identifies a worker who was missed as part of this process, please make contact with the team to discuss.
Probity check records
The date and outcome recorded against the probity checks should reflect the details as at the time of engagement. The register is not to be used to update probity checks during the course of a worker’s initial engagement. Although an agency may have an internal policy to recheck probity such as the NPC, this should be recorded on the agency’s own files. The new date and outcome is not to be added to the worker record on the register.
WWCC verifications
Please remember that WWCC verifications for residential care workers are to be done via the register. This will display the status as at the last verification.
If an individual’s WWCC Expires before it has renewed and verified, this will be shown on the agency’s Dashboard. The OCG will also contact the agency to flag this for action.
A verification task is created when a WWCC is due to expire in 6 weeks. A notification is sent to the agency’s WWCC Alert email as a reminder so this can be actioned. The task must 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 agency’s to review and action those still visible.
Provision of reportable allegation information
Section 87(4) of Children’s Guardian Act 2019 states that information on the register which is related to a reportable allegation must not be provided to individuals. There is more detail about the reasoning on this in the guidance materials on our website, including the reportable allegation business rules.
There are several tabs within the Residential Register which may include detail on reportable allegations including: Reportable Allegations, Records and Activity Log. When printing a copy of the records for an individual, these should not be selected.
Agency alert emails on register
Agencies must ensure the Alert emails nominated are active and are being monitored. If a change is needed to reflect the agency’s current practice, the email contact is to be amended by the agency’s Primary Administrator.
Notifications to our office
Accredited agencies must make notifications to the Office of the Children’s Guardian in line with legislation and conditions of accreditation.
Notifications and changes to agency details should be made using the accreditation portal. If your agency does not have access to the portal, you can use the forms available on our website.
Notification to the Office of the Children’s Guardian is required when:
- there are changes to the agency’s Principal Officer or agency contact details
- an agency with provisional accreditation first makes arrangements for the provision of statutory out-of-home care or commences adoption services
- there is a death of a child or young person in statutory out-of-home care placed with the agency
- a child under 12 years of age is placed in residential statutory out-of-home care with the agency, and if the placement with the agency ceases before the child turns 12. This notification type includes where the child under 12 years is placed under Individual Placement Arrangements. The agency that is providing care for the child is responsible for submitting this notification.
The following placement arrangements do not require notification:
- Individual Placement Arrangements (known as IPAs) - unless the child being placed is under 12 years of age. In this case, a notification of the placement of a child under 12 years in residential care is required (see above).
- Alternative Care Arrangements (known as ACAs) - a separate notification to the Children’s Guardian is not required. However when your agency is submitting Alternative Care Arrangement forms by email to the Department of Communities and Justice’s Placement Management Team, you must copy in the Children’s Guardian’s notifications address: oohcnotifications@ocg.nsw.gov.au
Information about IPAs and ACAs, including forms and emergency or temporary care terminology is available on the Department’s website.
Subscribing to our general newsletter
Did you know that you can also subscribe to the Office of the Children’s Guardian’s general newsletter?
You can subscribe to the general newsletter and receive monthly updates about child-safe training, resources, consultations and legislative changes, from the Contact Us page our website.
University of Newcastle report release
“Just Work as a Team”: Reconstructing family inclusion from parent, carer and practitioner perspectives
In February 2023, the University of Newcastle released a report on a family inclusion research project.
The research investigated how child protection and out-of-home care processes could be improved to achieve greater family inclusion. It included the views of parents of children who are removed; kinship carers, foster carers and adoptive parents and practitioners. It set out to examine how key stakeholder groups approached, experienced and understood parent and family inclusion in child protection and out-of-home care processes.
Findings from this research align with current evidence about the growing need for change to the foundations of child protection and out-of-home care practice and policy. The study reiterates the call to include the perspectives of children, parents, and families. It emphasises significant power differentials in these systems, that disempower parents and families in child protection processes.
The research findings presented in this report evidence the need to:
- develop a shared understanding of family inclusion
- develop a sector culture that values and prioritises family inclusion and the voices of parents, families and children and
- develop a process for family inclusion by co-design with stakeholders.
NSW Department of Communities and Justice and Life Without Barriers were among partners with the University of Newcastle in this project.
FACSIAR Lunch and Learn webinars
The Department of Communities and Justice - Family and Community Services Insights, Analysis and Research (FACSIAR) hosts free of charge, one-hour Lunch and Learn webinars.
You can register and view upcoming and recordings of past seminars on the FACSIAR website. Please share with your colleagues.
Seminars in 2022 included:
- Building the evidence: Restoration from out-of-home care for Aboriginal children and families
- How a child's entry into out-of-home care can influence long-term developmental and permanency outcomes.
You can register now for the next lunch and learn using MS Teams on Tuesday 23 May 2023, 12.00pm – 1.00pm, the topic is Family Time: Supporting positive and lasting connections for children in care.
