Community Based
Child Protection Worker’s (CBCPW) key role is to assist with
the integration and implementation of the legislative and practice
reforms underpinning a system of earlier and community based
intervention with vulnerable children.
The CBCPWs' will
spend regular time each week based with Child FIRST and regularly
liaise/meet with Family Services Agencies for the purposes of
consultations, relationship and partnership building and related
forums and meetings. CBCPWs’ will be regularly
available to Child FIRST, Family Services and Child Protection for
telephone and face to face consultations as
required.
CBCPWs’ will
be assigned to each Child FIRST/Family Services site to work
cooperatively and innovatively to prevent children being reported
to Child Protection and prevent families progressing into the Child
Protection system unless otherwise appropriate. This will
include joint approaches to reduce and containing risk, promoting
the child’s/young persons’ safety and well-being, to
actively engage families and to maintaining involvement with
“hard to engage” families.
CBCPWs are able to
provide consultancy to Child FIRST/Family Services relating to
unborn children and children/young people who may or may not be the
subject of an open child protection case file. When conducting
direct client work, the CBCPW should always advise clients of their
role with Child Protection.
A significant
component of the CBCPW role is to provide collaborative specialist
consultation about child focused risk assessment, safety planning
and intervention or children and young people in order
to:
-
Maximize children, young people and
families access to appropriate community supports by diverting
notifications from Child Protection when appropriate;
-
Support the community based family
services capacity for sustained intervention with vulnerable
children and families.
-
Foster positive working partnerships
between agencies, families, and child protection.
In practice the
CBCPW’s functions will include the following:
-
Provision of referral information,
advice and consultation to Child Protection Intake and Case
Management teams regarding family services referrals pathways and
what constitutes an appropriate referral to Child FIRST/Family
Services.
-
Provision of information, advice and
consultation to Child FIRST/Family Services about referrals and
specific cases, including risk assessment and safety planning
during the course of their intervention with unborn children,
children and young people.
-
Agency visits for
consultations.
-
Co-location with Child
FIRST
-
Phone consultations
-
Attend allocations
meetings
-
Written case consults
-
Assist Child FIRST/Family Services
engagement with families by direct phone and/or home visits to the
family to discuss the reported/referred concerns, potential harm
consequences for the child and benefits to the child and family to
engaging with services to best promote the child’s
wellbeing.
-
Case Conferences with family with
Child FIRST/Family Services.
-
Review meetings with family with Child
FIRST/Family Services
-
Outreach visits to family home with
Child FIRST/Family Services.
-
Phone calls to families.
-
Facilitate referrals from Child
Protection to Child FIRST/Family Services in a timely and positive
manner.
-
Provide expert advice to Child
FIRST/Family Services with understanding how Child Protection
assesses risk and safety. In cases of unborn children and/or
infants under 3 years of age, the CBCPW may seek further specialist
advice from the Child Protection high risk infant
program.
-
Collaborative practice and
consultations with Child FIRST/Family Services to explore
alternative responses, prior to making a report to Child
Protection.
-
Facilitate reports from Child
FIRST/Family Services to Child Protection regarding children
requiring a statutory and timely child protection
response.
-
Community education regarding CYFA,
Child FIRST/Family Services and role of CBCPW.
