Reporting Laws and Requirements - VIC
What concerns do I need to report?
- Well the easy answer to this is that you report EVERYTHING!
- Your biggest decision about reporting is not whether to report or not – but who to report to.
You have two options:
- In House Reporting – to your Senior Supervisor/Team Leader/Coordinator.
- Formal Reporting – to authorities.
So now you’ve learnt about recognising the different types of harm/abuse – but now what? You might notice something that concerns you a little or maybe a lot. What do you do then? How do you go about reporting?
What we’re going to talk about now applies to you no matter what State or Territory you are in and will ensure you meet all your legal, moral and ethical obligations to report abuse.
So what do you report? Simple. You report everything. Now, before you and your boss and various government departments start hyperventilating – we are not talking here about reporting everything to authorities. What we are saying is that your biggest decision is not about whether or not to report – but who to report to. That decision gets a lot easier when you make it in consultation with a Senior Supervisor/Team Leader/Coordinator and we recommend where possible or practicable that’s exactly what you do.
Your choices about reporting are either In House reporting – to your Senior Supervisor/Team Leader/Coordinator, or reporting formally to authorities. In House reporting will involve documenting your concerns as we’ve dealt with earlier in the lesson. Formal reporting will also involve documenting appropriately so that you can report as outlined in the previous lesson that dealt with your legal obligations.