Who is leading the change
- Department of Health and Human Services
The Department of Health and Human Services support on a continuing basis the co-located child protection practitioner initiative in the Victorian registries of the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court of Australia.
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Child protection practitioners are co-located at the Melbourne and Dandenong registries of the federal family law courts. An initial program, run from 2012, found that the role assisted courts in cases where child protection issues are raised and provided leadership to other child protection staff in relation to family law matters.
The practitioner's role is to facilitate information sharing between the court and child protection where families were engaged with both the Victorian child protection system and the Commonwealth family law system. Better information sharing has been shown to improve decision making about the best interests of children who are the subject of legal proceedings in the family law jurisdiction.
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This recommendation has been implemented.
- Implemented.
Reviewed 17 May 2020