The department is required under the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005 to notify the Commission for Children and Young People (the CCYP) of allegations of child abuse (and other child-related misconduct) made against departmental staff.
Departmental staff include:
- department employees (including staff at central and divisional offices)
- contractors
- volunteers
- kinship carers
- labour hire staff.
The Reportable Conduct Scheme (RCS) is additional to, and does not replace, departmental processes for reporting and responding to staff misconduct.
The RCS aims to enhance the safety of children and improve the way organisations prevent and respond to allegations of harm to children by:
- requiring organisations covered by the scheme to report and investigate allegations of harm to children by staff
- having independent oversight of the scheme by the CCYP.
- The RCS complements the 3208 Child Safe Standards and other existing child safety measures.
There are five types of ‘reportable conduct’:
- sexual offences committed against, with, or in the presence of a child
- sexual misconduct committed against, with, or in the presence of a child
- physical violence against, with, or in the presence of a child
- any behaviour that causes significant emotional or psychological harm to a child
- significant neglect of a child.
The scope of ‘reportable conduct’ is wide and includes conduct that may fall below a criminal threshold, or occurs outside service delivery or outside the course of employment
For further detailed information visit the CCYP website at https://ccyp.vic.gov.au/child-safety/resources/reportable-conduct-scheme-information-sheets/
If the alleged conduct is potentially criminal in nature, Victoria Police must also be notified as a priority and any investigation by Victoria Police will take precedence.
Once a staff member has become aware of an allegation of reportable conduct by an employee, or of misconduct by an employee that may involve reportable conduct, they are required to notify their line manager as soon as possible.
When notified of an allegation against an employee, management will provide the information to Workplace Relations in accordance with the existing employee misconduct process. This step does not apply to kinship carers (see below).
Workplace Relations will refer the matter to the department’s Integrity Unit.
The Integrity Unit in Executive Services Branch is the department’s delegate for the RCS and will make any relevant notification to the CCYP and will take any necessary actions.
Other departmental staff are not required to make a report directly to the CCYP.
Allegations of reportable conduct or misconduct by a staff member may also require:
- a Client Incident Management System (CIMS) incident report. See Client Incident Management System
- a notifiable incident report under section 48 of the Social Services Regulation Act.
Determine if the incident meets the definition of a Critical notifiable incident under the Social Services Regulator requirements. Critical notifiable incidents include:
- Unexpected death
- Escape from a secure facility
- Medication error
- Physical abuse
- Sexual abuse
- Fire, flood and other emergency events.
From time to time the Regulator may determine changes are required to critical notifiable incident criteria – practitioners should refer to the link below.
Notify the Social Services Regulator, if required, by close of business the next business day using the Regulator’s critical notifiable incident short form.
Critical notifiable incident criteria and the short form to notify the Regulator can be found here
Complete a CIMS incident report within 3 business days for incidents in scope of CIMS. See – 1518 Allegations of harm to clients in care – Client Incident Management System (CIMS).
The department shares CIMS information with the Regulator under a strict information sharing protocol that provides the Regulator with access to CIMS information in scope of incident notification requirements under the Social Services Regulation Act.
For kinship carers:
Kinship carers may meet the criteria of an employee under the RCS. The Integrity Unit must be consulted when an allegation is made against a kinship carer to confirm if it is in scope of the RCS.
The Integrity Unit can provide information about next steps and where further investigations must be undertaken – see Reportable Conduct Scheme sharepoint site
For further advice on reporting and investigating incidents of harm to clients in care, including allegations of abuse or neglect, or unexplained injuries, see the Client Incident Management System and the New allegations procedure.
Requests for information from the Commission for Children and Young People (CCYP)
Requests for information may be made to the department to assist organizations (who are prescribed Information Sharing Entities (ISEs) under the Child Information Sharing Scheme (CISS) in investigating these allegations. Most RCS requests are made directly to the Information Sharing Team (IST) by the CCYP. The IST will work with the relevant CPPs to ensure that responses meet the legislative requirements. If you need help with a request that comes directly to you, please contact the Information Sharing Team.
Further information on the RCS, including the department’s RCS procedures, investigation plan and report templates, are located on the department’s Reportable Conduct Scheme sharepoint site
Further CCYP guidance on the RCS is on the CCYP’s website at https://ccyp.vic.gov.au/reportable-conduct-scheme/
For information on responding to and reporting concerns about staff conduct in the course of their duties as a departmental employee visit Managing misconduct policy and guidelines.
For information on responding to a report about a child who is related to someone who works at the department, see procedure- Reports about children related to DHHS staff and advice Reports about children related to DHHS staff
For information on the Child Safe Standards see Child Safe Standards and on the department’s internet site and on the Child Safe Standards intranet page at https://intranet.dhhs.vic.gov.au/child-safe-standards
For resources and guidance on sharing information in response to an RCS request please refer to The Information Sharing Team SharePoint site.
For Information on the Social Services Regulators notifiable incident reporting see https://www.vic.gov.au/ssr-reporting-notifiable-incident
- Reports about children related to DHHS staff
- Reports about children related to DHHS staff - advice
- Reportable conduct scheme - Sharepoint site
- Reportable conduct scheme - CCYP website
- Managing unsatifactory work performance and misconduct policy
- Child safe standards - Our approach
- Child safe standards - DHHS intranet site
- Child safe standards - DHHS internet site