The State Government has released its new draft child protection and family support laws, with information sessions to commence on a bill that represents transformative change.
The Children and Young People (Safety and Support) Bill 2024 has been developed, following a comprehensive review of existing legislation and statewide consultation, where almost a thousand people provided their views.
The review provided an opportunity to rigorously examine and improve the central legislative framework and foundation through which South Australia’s child protection and family support system operates.
In-person forums, online surveys, written submissions, and targeted discussions with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people across metropolitan and regional South Australia were undertaken as part of the comprehensive process.
The level and depth of feedback received has provided a clear mandate for the Government’s commitment to fundamental transformation of the child protection and family support system to help improve the lives of children, young people and their families.
The Bill is ambitious in seeking to reflect the feedback received, to reconcile the many views and perspectives, to contemplate other reviews and to redefine what the system looks like going forward in a way that reflects community values and expectations about the need to support children.
Changes within the new legislation are far reaching and include:
- Privileging the voice of children and young people in decision making
- A focus on whole of government and community responses to children and families with a public health approach enshrined.
- Provisions that better support an interagency response to the needs of a child or young person.
- Enshrining the full Aboriginal Child Placement Principle and embedding the commitment that it be implemented to the standard of active efforts, alongside broader provisions that will help drive delivery of Closing the Gap.
- Privileges Aboriginal led decision making and self determination.
- An expansion of family group conferences with the new legislation requiring that Aboriginal families be offered a family group conference.
- Establishing an independent complaints mechanism through the Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner with powers to investigate particular complaints relating to services provided for children and young people.
- Increasing the threshold for mandatory notifications to ‘significant harm’. These provisions reflect those in place in other jurisdictions. South Australia currently has the lowest threshold for mandatory notification in the country.
- Explicitly recognising exposure to domestic violence as a cause of harm.
- Strengthening the definition of cumulative harm.
- Making the prior knowledge that a child is in care an aggravating factor for sexual assault and other offences against children.
- Renaming the legislation to include the word ‘Support’ in response to compelling feedback during the review calling for a continued focus on supports to keep families safely together and to ensure children and young people in care can thrive.
Details of upcoming information sessions and an opportunity to contribute online can be found here https://yoursay.sa.gov.au/draftcypssbill2024
Quotes attributable to Katrine Hildyard
I wholeheartedly thank the nearly one thousand South Australians who provided thoughtful and detailed feedback integral to the development of our transformative new legislation.
We were so pleased to hear from a wide range of people across the state - children and young people, carers, Aboriginal organisations and communities, community sector leaders and members of the public - about how we can ensure the legislation sets a foundation and framework to improve outcomes for children and young people and their families in the long term.
We are determined to progress reform that makes a lasting difference in the lives of children, young people and their families. This legislation will absolutely help us to do that.
It rightly privileges the voices of children and young people, empowers Aboriginal people to lead decision making about their children and recognises that connection to family, culture, community and Country is both a right and a protective factor, sets out the need for a whole of government, whole of community and whole of sector focus, contemplates the complex issues families face and enhances rights for carers.
This legislation has the potential to help make a difference for decades to come. I look forward to speaking with community and introducing it to parliament.