Update on North-West Child Protection Notifications

Detailed investigation of the North-West unallocated notifications has to date revealed no evidence to suggest that any children subsequently came to harm.

None of the 151 notifications were assessed as priority one and 143 have now been closed.

Every notification to child protection is to be taken seriously. However, it must be noted that in many cases, most notifications are expressions of concerns. Our initial work in Intake is to ascertain the veracity of those concerns to determine if a child has, or is, experiencing harm.

Of the notifications, 87 related to reports of family arguments or possible family violence, 20 to concerns of possible abuse of a sexual nature, and the remainder were reports of possible neglect, homelessness or other concerns for welfare.

The “threshold for statutory intervention” is reached when, having received a notification, the Intake team considers that one or more of the risk thresholds has been met and that by CPS intervening under the Act, this action will create a protective environment and/or prevent further abuse or neglect.

For example, a case of sexual abuse may be notified to the Department however the assessment indicates that it was a stranger sexual assault, the child has protective parents and is getting the help they need, it is a police matter and therefore, the requirement for “statutory intervention” by CPS is not required.

Intervention is therefore dependent on the circumstances of each and every case – CPS may get notified about every case of sexual abuse, but will not have a mandate for intervention for reasons just mentioned.

The failure to properly progress and refer these notifications was discovered due to initiatives arising from the Government’s reforms to child protection.

The Hodgman Liberal Government has resolved to undertake a full redesign of the broken child protection system we inherited from Labor and the Greens to better protect Tasmanian children.
Jacquie Petrusma, Minister for Human Services