DOCUMENTING AND REPORTING
You don’t need proof – just a suspicion or belief.
Sometimes you may not have all of this information.
As a minimum, the Department in your State / Territory needs to be able to identify and locate the child. Information that assists this, such as the child’s school or child care centre, is also helpful.
Please refer to your State / Territory below for your specific Department:
- Queensland - Department of Child Safety, Seniors and Disability Services
- Victoria - Department of Families, Fairness and Housing
- New South Wales - Department of Family and Community Services NSW
- Western Australia - Western Australia Department of Communities, Child Protection and Family Support
- Northern Territory - Northern Territory Government - Territory Families
- Australian Capital Territory - Child and Youth Protection Services
- Tasmania - Department for Education, Children and Young People
- South Australia - Department for Child Protection
Details of Child
Description of any injuries seen
The quality and amount of information provided to the Helpline is critical to the quality of the decision making that follows. You need to include enough information to identify the child, and provide reasonable grounds for your suspicion – but remember - you don’t need proof. In fact, reports must still be made even where there’s only a little information that is known but there is risk of significant harm.
Basically, what you are trying to do is give the child safety workers the best chance to make an informed assessment of your report. Some of this information will be important in the initial stages of assessment and investigation – but other parts may be important much later if it becomes necessary to take more protective measures such as taking the child or children into protective custody and organising foster care, or going to court.
You will need to adjust these questions if you are reporting about more than one child – and remember if you’re reporting about more than one child in a family, their details may be different – for example they may not live in the same household all the time - they may each spend different days or weeks in different households with different caregivers and different extended families and support networks. This can all be very useful information if the investigation arrives at a point where foster or alternative care is necessary for the children – and it is in the best interests of the children to keep them together.
Name and date of birth of the child(ren).
Home address of the child(ren) and any previous known addresses of the family.
Current whereabouts of the child(ren).
Names of Parents, any aliases, and contact details.
Names of any siblings or description of number, sex, and age of siblings.
Details of any other persons/adults that reside at the address with the children.
Exact nature of the abuse or neglect.
When the abuse or neglect is said to have occurred and how often.
Alleged perpetrator’s name, aliases, age, address, relationships to the child or children, current whereabouts.
Details of when the next expected contact with the alleged perpetrator will occur
Details about exactly when and how you became aware of the information – this may involve consulting your ongoing notes and documentation in relation to the child(ren).
Names of any other adults or children who may have witnessed the abuse or neglect.
Names of any adults or children who have provided you with information about the abuse or neglect.
Details of any disclosures made by the child(ren) to yourself or other adults or children.
Description of any injuries seen – may be accompanied by sketches or photographs.
Description of the behaviour of the child(ren) or any other indicators you observed.
Information about any concerning behaviours of other family members including parents or caregivers.
Information about whether or not Parents or Caregivers have been informed about the suspected abuse or neglect, or the making of the report.
An outline of the attitude of the carers of the child to the injury or incident if they have been told about it.
Details of any known supports available to the child(ren) and their family – including any known details of the extended family.
Any information about a previous history of abuse or neglect involving the child(ren), their family or their extended families.
If child has a disability – nature/type, severity, impact on functioning
Is the child/young person subject of an Apprehended/Domestic Violence Order?
Is the child or young person under the care of the Minister or residing in out-of-home care?
Reporter Details
Name, agency address, phone and email details
Position
Reason for reporting today – grounds for suspecting
Nature of contact with child or family
Nature of ongoing role with child or family (include frequency, duration and type)
If report is being made by someone else in the agency, name of the agency worker who sourced the report
Other information
Services involved with child/family if known
Principal language of family and whether an interpreter for a spoken or signed language is required
If parent knows of report and their response
If child or young person knows about the report and their views
Information related to worker safety issues
You should ensure you keep on file a copy of all information provided for your report.