ey reform changes include increasing the threshold for reporting children and young people to the Child Protection Helpline from “risk of harm” to “risk of significant harm”. Establishing Child Wellbeing Units in the major government reporting agencies. Establishing a network of Family Referral Services. Enhanced service provision, including prevention and early intervention services and acute services. Increasing the role of non-government organizations in delivering services. Changes to processes in the Children’s Court. Providing better services to Aboriginal children and young people, with the aim of reducing their over-representation in the child protection system.
Keep Them Safe Reform Review
According to the National Approach to Child Protection Project Report, child protection systems in Australia have experienced higher numbers of notifications and larger administrative burdens. Systems are facing many more complex challenges trying to reduce the number of children which require the state to interject to keep them safe.
The legislative and practice reform in Keep Them Safe have attempted to incorporate a range of core values and principles which are very compatible and complementary to Social work values for working in the child protection context, such as children’s rights , promoting good parenting , providing a safe and stable home for children and young people in care , and creating a child focused system , interagency collaboration to promote child wellbeing and child protection , the principle of openness and engagement with children young people and families, respect and cultural understanding , empowerment and participation in decision making all identified in the Engaging children, young people and families, Child Wellbeing and Child Protection ‘ NSW Interagency Guidelines (2011) . A key priority, the NSW Keep Them Safe reform agenda is to develop long-term solutions to support parents, families, and the community services sector by channelling resources into services that identify children and families who are vulnerable or at risk and provide them with services and support before problems escalate.
However, when critically analysing the impact of the Keep Them Safe reform it is evident, according to the findings from the NSW ombudsman’s Bruce Barbour report, that many of the priorities on the reform agenda and expected outcomes were not achieved. In fact, according to the ombudsman the results of the review