ACT Child and Youth Protection Services

What we do

We respond to reports of child abuse and neglect in families. And we make sure children, young people and families get the help they need, when they need it.

We work to:

• keep children with their families by providing early support to help parents care for their children and stop them entering care
• reunite children with their parents as quickly as possible if they do enter care
• make sure children can grow up in secure, loving and permanent homes if they cannot safely return to their parents’ care
• coordinate local, intercountry and out-of-home care adoption in the ACT
• provide an information service for people who have been adopted.

We also support young people involved with the justice system. To do this we:

• help young people stay out of the courts and youth detention through programs like the After Hours Crisis and Bail Service
• supervise young people on justice orders
• provide rehabilitation and support programs to prevent young people from reoffending.

Our services

• Report child abuse and neglect: we receive, assess and respond to reports of child abuse and neglect in families.
• Case management: how we identify a child’s needs, plan support and agree on goals and activities to support the safety and wellbeing of children and families.
• Family Group Conferencing: a way we work in partnership with families to keep children safe
• Behaviour support plans: for all children and young people who need any form of restrictive practice
• Therapeutic assessments: how we understand the trauma that children and young people in our care have experienced.
• Reportable Conduct Scheme investigations: how we investigate allegations or convictions of child abuse and neglect by Community Services Directorate staff.
• Get information about a reportable conduct investigation: how we share information with other organisations under the Reportable Conduct Scheme
• Foster carer and kinship carer support: how we help carers give a safe and caring home to a child when they cannot live with their parents.
• Kinship care: how we work with families to decide where a child lives until they can safely return to their parents’ care.
• Adoptions: how we look after ACT and overseas adoptions including assessing applications, matching children and adoptive parents and helping children stay connected with birth parents.
• Getting parental responsibility for a child in your care: how we help children when they cannot return to their parents.
• Family Information Service: how we help people who were separated by adoption to find relatives.
• Bimberi Youth Justice Centre: protection, rehabilitation and support for young people in youth detention.
• Rehabilitation and support: to prevent young people from reoffending.
• Training to report and respond to child abuse and neglect: for ACT Government staff and community organisations who work with children.

Strategies and action plans

• Next Steps for Our Kids Strategy: a strategy for ACT children, young people and families who are at risk of entering the child protection system, involved with, or transitioning from out of home care.
• Our Booris, Our Way: a review and recommendations to address the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the child protection system in the ACT.

Advisory councils and reference groups

• Strengthening Practice Committee: to improve the quality of child protection policy and practice in the ACT.
• Child and Family Reform Ministerial Advisory Council: to improve outcomes for children, young people and their families.

Publications

• Carer Handbook [PDF 6.8 MB]: the go-to resource for kinship and foster carers in the ACT
• Therapeutic care resources: strategies for parents and carers to support the wellbeing of a child or young person who has experienced trauma.
• Trauma and your body: resources to help you understand how trauma effects a child’s body.
• Charter of Rights for Kids in Care: what children and young people can expect from the people who are looking after them when they are in care.
• Charter for Parents and Families involved with ACT child protection services: sets out the responsibilities of families and child protection workers, and what everyone can expect when working together.
• Charter of Rights for Young People in Bimberi: how young people can expect to be treated and how they should treat others while in youth detention.
• Bimberi Handbook [PDF 6.2 MB]: a guide for young people in Bimberi Youth Justice Centre
• Blueprint for Youth Justice 2012–22: sets out the strategic direction for youth justice in the ACT. The Blueprint focuses on early intervention, prevention and diversion with custody used as a last resort.
• Keeping Children and Young People Safe: how to report concerns of child abuse or neglect that happen in a family to Child and Youth Protection Services.
• Picture of Children and Young People in the ACT: health, wellbeing, learning and development outcomes for children and young people in the ACT.

Contact us