Care Agreements

A Care Agreement is an agreement between our department and parents to place their child or young person with an approved carer for a short period of time.

This type of agreement can be used when we are not sure that a child will be safe at home and when parents are willing to work with our department to resolve any child protection concerns.

There are two types of Care Agreements:

  • Assessment Care Agreement - can be used when we are investigating and assessing child protection concerns to determine if a child or young person is in need of protection. We can ask parents to sign this type of Care Agreement for up to 30 days and during this time the parents will still have legal custody.
  • Child Protection Care Agreement - can be used when we have assessed that a child or young person is in need of protection. Parents can agree to this type of Care Agreement for an initial period of 30 days. The agreement can be extended for further periods with the parent's consent.

During the period of the Child Protection Care Agreement, our department will have legal custody of the child or young person.

However, parents can tell us which day-to-day decisions they would like to be involved with.

Parents retain the right to make significant decisions about their child or young person as they will still be the guardian.

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Care agreements - Information for parents

Care agreements - Information for parents PDF, 150 KB