Overview
A top priority of the Victorian Government is keeping children safe and supporting their wellbeing.
Over the last decade, many independent inquiries and reviews have recommended reform to Victoria’s child information sharing laws, as a lack of information sharing has contributed to negative outcomes to the wellbeing and safety of Victorian children.
The Child Information Sharing (CIS) Scheme responds to these recommendations, including recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Three interrelated reforms to improve information sharing and risk assessment are being progressed by the Victorian Government.
These schemes strengthen the ability of authorised and trained professionals and organisations to work better together to identify vulnerability and risk early to make sure children and families get the help they need as early as possible.
The Child Information Sharing (CIS) Scheme, which will start on 3 September 2018 for a first phase of organisations, will allow information sharing between authorised and trained professionals specifically to promote children’s wellbeing and safety.
All Victorian children and young people from 0 to under 18 years of age will be covered by the new Scheme.
The Family Violence Information Sharing (FVIS) Scheme, which was introduced on 28 February 2018, enables information sharing between authorised and trained organisations and professionals specifically to assess and manage family violence risk to children and adults.
The Family Violence Risk Assessment and Risk Management Framework (the Framework) is being redeveloped in line with recommendation one of the Royal Commission into Family Violence. The Framework will support authorised and trained organisations and professionals in their roles and responsibilities to specifically assess and manage family violence risk to better protect victims and hold perpetrators to account.
How to participate
We are seeking your feedback on key documents for the Child Information Sharing (CIS) Scheme.
We want to hear from you.
The CIS Scheme Regulatory Impact Statement and CIS Scheme Regulations (i.e. the 'Child Wellbeing and Safety (Information Sharing) Regulations 2018') are available now for public comment.
It is important that you review the Key Documents below to respond to the survey. The closing date for feedback is 5pm, Friday 15 June, 2018.
**Please note, the CIS Scheme Ministerial Guidelines will be available on this website from the week commencing 28 May 2018 (and will have a closing date for receiving submissions of in the week of 25 June 2018).**
You can submit feedback online by completing the survey below, or emailing us at childinfosharing@edumail.vic.gov.au or childinfosharing@dhhs.vic.gov.au
The key documents
The regulations will prescribe entities authorised to request and to share information with other prescribed entities for the purposes of promoting child wellbeing or safety, specify record keeping obligations that information sharing entities will be required to comply with, and identify relevant secrecy and confidentiality provisions in other Acts, which will be displaced.
The function of the Regulatory Impact Statement is to consider the regulatory impact of this legislation, which is crucial to its administration
The FVIS Scheme and the redeveloped Framework public consultation materials will be available on the Victorian Government Family Violence website from 12 June 2018.
Questions
Next steps
Given the interdependencies between these reforms and the prescribed workforces, a coordinated approach to implementation, including public consultation, is being planned.
DHHS, DET and FSV will continue to work collaboratively to gather your feedback to inform an integrated approach and the aligned rollout of the three reforms.
We aim to have this finalised by August to commence training, in time for a 3rd September start date.
Privacy statement
The primary purpose for collecting this information is to engage stakeholders on the Child Information Sharing (CIS) Scheme, as part of a 28-day mandatory consultation period for new legislation.
The Victorian Government is seeking the views and professional opinions of relevant stakeholders to inform the development and implementation of the CIS Scheme (including on the Ministerial Guidelines, Regulations and Regulatory Impact Statement).
The Department of Education and Training (DET), the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Family Safety Victoria (FSV) are overseeing the CIS Scheme.
The information gathered will be used to inform the Department’s development of materials and public position on the Child Information Sharing Scheme, and for no other purpose.
Submissions will require at a minimum an email address, but no other unique information. People will be able to opt for their names to be associated with their views expressed. The consultation will not collect any sensitive or health information except for email addresses.
The only purpose of the consultation submission is to inform the Department’s development of materials and public position on the Child Information Sharing Scheme.
The Engage Victorian online platform will initially collect the information, before transfer to a restricted location on the Department’s Sharepoint system. Only those closely involved in the project will have permission to access the information. Colleagues in DHHS will receive the information as an email attachment, with a confidential tag, and then stored in a secure location with restricted access.
The information will remain in the servers of DET and DHHS.
