PCA’s Child Protection Procedure provides guidance for small organisations to be able to respond to, report, and document concerns and suspicions relating to familial child abuse and neglect (i.e. abuse and neglect suspected of occurring in the family home). This procedure provides a standardised reactive approach to child protection matters which is compliant with child protection legislation in every state and territory in Australia, and in many cases, holds staff and volunteers to a higher standard than is legislatively required. This means that as long as your staff and volunteers follow this procedure, they will also be compliant with any mandatory obligations they have under the law.

This procedure is suited to smaller organisations that have a single location, or do not have a centralised team or ‘head office’ that would need child protection information to be reported to in addition to management at the front-line location. Organisations that have a more complicated structure or want a single procedure for responding to suspicions of harm in the organisational environment or in the family home should contact us for a tailored process.

What’s included in the Child Protection Procedure?

• An easy to follow ‘step-by-step’ reactive child protection procedure which is compliant with the principle piece of child protection legislation in each state and territory (e.g. the Child Protection Act 1999 (QLD)) and mandatory reporter obligations

• Appendices to support good record keeping practice including an ‘Injury on Intake’ form and a ‘Child Protection Concern’ form

• Supplied in .pdf and .doc format to allow you to customise the content to meet your needs (note: only the original .pdf can be certified by PCA as being compliant with legislation and PCA does not support or endorse altering or amending the content of the .doc version beyond minor cosmetic changes to suit your organisation’s branding or style guides).

One more thing about the procedure

The Child Protection Procedure is a ‘point in time’ purchase. It is correct at the time of sale. Although the version available for sale is frequently replaced, the version purchased is not. Therefore, it should be reviewed by your organisation periodically and in response to any law reform. PCA is able to offer an ‘active-monitoring’ service to undertake an annual review and update of your child protection and child safeguarding documents as well as ad-hoc updates in response to legislative change. Contact us if you would like to upgrade to this subscription model.