Child Protection (Vic)

In Victoria, child protection matters are governed by the Children Youth and Families Act 2005 and investigated by the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH). DFFH may engage with families where there is a concern that a child’s welfare may be at risk. The Department may also apply to the Children’s Court for a short-term or long-term protection order in relation to a child. This page deals with child protection matters in Victoria.

Investigating children who may be at risk

The Department may form the belief that a child is at risk for a range of reasons. This may be because a parent or another member of their family has been charged with criminal offences, because an intervention order has been taken out, because a professional or a member of the public has made a child protection notification, because the child has been injured or because the child’s parent has died.

Support for families

If the Department identifies a family as struggling to provide a child with the care and protection they need, but considers that the challenges can be met, it may provide the family with support to assist with raising the child. This may include in-home support, counselling, group work, or help accessing services. Where the Department’s involvement is substantial, a case plan will be prepared, setting out what needs to be done to ensure the child is protected from harm.

If the Department considers that a child cannot be adequately protected from harm while in their parents’ care, it will seek a court order giving it the power to remove the child. If a child is at an unacceptable risk of harm, he or she may be urgently removed into emergency care.  

When is a child in need of protection?

Under section 162 of the Act, a child is in need of protection if they have been abandoned by their parents and there is no other suitable person to care for them or if they have suffered various types of harm from which their parents are not likely to protect them. This harm may be of a physical, sexual, emotional or psychological nature or it may be harm to their health.

Best interests of the child

Under section 10 of the Act, the best interests of the child must always be paramount. When determining what is in the best interest of the child, the need to protect the child from harm and to promote his or her development must always be considered.

When it is relevant to a decision or action, consideration must also be given to a range of other considerations set out in section 10. These include:

• the need to protect and assist the parent and child and ensure that intervention into that relationship is limited to what is necessary for the child’s safety and wellbeing
• the need to strengthen and preserve the relationship between the child and their family
• for an Aboriginal child, the need to protect and promote their Aboriginal identity by maintaining ties with their community where possible
• the child’s views and wishes where they can be ascertained and where this is appropriate
• the effect of patterns of harm on a child’s development
• the desirability of permanency and continuity in the child’s care
• the desirability of making decisions quickly
• that a child should only be removed from their parent’s care if there is an unacceptable risk of harm  
• if a child is removed form their parents, that consideration is first given to placing them with another family member
• the desirability, if a child is removed from their parent, of reunifying the child with their parent
• the capacity or each parent or carer to provide for the child’s needs and give effect to the goals set out in the case plan
• contact arrangements between the child and their family
• the child’s identity, religion, age, maturity, sex and sexual identity.

Child protection orders

The court has the power to make orders allowing the Department to investigate a report that a child is at risk of harm, to make a short-term order about where a child shall live while protective concerns are being addressed, and to make a long-term order about who shall have parental responsibility for a child.

A long-term order may be a long-term care order, which gives the Department parental responsibility for the child or it may a permanent care order, which gives parental responsibility for the child to a carer who has been assessed as suitable by the court. Both these orders remain in place until the child’s eighteenth birthday.

Parental responsibility

Parental responsibility is the power and duty to make all the long-term and big-picture decisions about a child. In a situation where the Department is not involved with a child, parental responsibility is generally held equally by the child’s parents.   

When parental responsibility is given to the Department, this means that the Department will make decisions such as with whom the child lives, where they go to school and what major medical interventions they receive. In this situation, the child may be placed with a carer (such as a grandparent), but the Department will continue to make the big-picture decisions about the child. The carer will be responsibility for making day-to-day decisions such as how the child gets to school and what they eat for dinner.

When parental responsibility is given to a carer rather than to the Department, the carer will be responsible for making big-picture decision about the child and the Department’s involvement will cease.

Contesting a child protection application

When the department applies for an order, the application will be served on the child’s parents or guardians, who may file a response. The parents may oppose the order being sought or consent to it. If an application is contested, it may proceed to a hearing where the court will hear evidence and submissions from all parties before deciding whether to make an order, what order to make and what conditions to attach to the order. These decisions will be made based on an assessment of the evidence and what is in the child’s best interests.

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