10.21 Family courts
Purpose
This procedure outlines the interface between the department and family courts, including the process for:
- responding to information about harm or risk of harm to a child subject to family court orders or proceedings, or whose parents reside separately
- responding to a family court order, including Magellan matters, requesting intervention by the department
- undertaking an investigation and assessment, where there is an interface or potential interface with the family court or family court orders
- intervention by the department when a child requires protection from a parent who has a parenting order, or where there are current proceedings in a family court or the child's parents reside separately.
Key steps
- The family courts and child protection interface
- Exchange of information
- Assess information received about harm or risk of harm
- Respond to an order requesting intervention by the department - section 91B orders
- Undertake an investigation and assessment
- Respond to a child in need of protection
What ifs - responding to specific family court matters
Standards
- A child of separated parents is afforded the same right to protection and intervention by the department, as other children.
- A decision to intervene in a family court proceeding, or to provide documentation for a family court application or proceedings, is made only after consultation with Court Services.
- Documentation to be provided to a parent, in relation to a family court application (other than a letter to a parent under the Child Protection Act 1999, section 15(2)), is forwarded to Court Services in the first instance (for quality assurance), and is signed by a CSSC manager.
- If there is a protective parent who is assessed as willing to protect a child but unable to do so, because of an order requiring the child to live, or have contact, with a parent to whom child protection concerns apply, the department will take necessary action to protect the child.
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Every effort is made to avoid multiple proceedings running in concurrent jurisdictions (for example, the Childrens Court and Family Court). So far as possible decisions about a particular child should be made by only one court, namely the court that is most appropriate in the circumstances (the ‘one court principle’).
Authority