Consultations
between Child Protection and Family Services are authorised by s38
of the CYFA 2005
Consultations may
occur:
-
On a one-to-one basis, in person or by
phone
-
As part of a case conference or home
visit
-
As part of a team or peer case review
process
Family members may
be present or not, as may other professionals.
Community Based
Child Protection workers (CBCPW) will be available at rostered and
regular times at Child FIRST and at local Family Services agencies,
or may be contacted by mobile phone for telephone
consultation.
(See the Child
FIRST-Child Protection Agreement, for further detail).
Advising families
of consultations
It is an expectation
within the NCVFS Alliance that the first position with families is
to be open about the level of concern about their children and
about what actions professionals are taking in the face of this
concern. It is an expectation therefore that families
are:
-
Informed as soon as practicable before
or after that consultations have occurred and advised of the
reasons for the consultation (ie the significant
concerns)
-
That this may be waived if there are
real concerns that informing families may pose a risk to a child
(such as genuine concern that there may be reprisal to the child
for disclosing abuse) worker or other, or is not in the child's
best interests.
Information
exchanged within consultations
Information that may
be exchanged in consultations includes:
-
Risk assessment, protective factors
and suggestions for safety planning
-
Historical information including
history of previous CP reports
-
Cross referencing of Family Service
and CP information to ascertain gaps and inconsistencies in key
information
-
Provision of additional information
not known to Child FIRST/Family Services to assist assessment and
engagement
-
Statement of how the information
shared during the consultation will be recorded by both
parties
-
Agreement about who will inform the
family of consultation (engaged worker usually)
-
Professional case analysis, further
actions and review
-
Clarification of any worker safety
factors
IRIS
recording
The IRIS service
activity “Child Protection consultation” must be
indicated every time a consultation occurs, irrespective of
significant concerns or not.
