Application
This unit describes the skills and knowledge required by child protection workers to support children and young people, and to assist families to ensure that children and young people are safe and appropriately cared for. It also covers the ethical, duty of care and legal requirements for this work.
This unit applies to work undertaken in paraprofessional child protection occupations in government and non-government organisations.
The skills in this unit must be applied in accordance with Commonwealth and State/Territory legislation, Australian/New Zealand standards and industry codes of practice.
Elements and Performance Criteria
ELEMENT | PERFORMANCE CRITERIA |
Elements define the essential outcomes. | Performance criteria specify the level of performance needed to demonstrate achievement of the element. |
1. Demonstrate commitment to quality care for children and young people | 1.1 Identify relationships between the legal, political and social framework within which the work is undertaken 1.2 Identify roles and responsibilities of system stakeholders and relationship to own work 1.3 Comply with duty of care, policy, regulatory, legislative and legal requirements 1.4 Identify and implement organisation policies and procedures 1.5 Reflect on personal values and attitudes and acknowledge their potential impact when working in child protection contexts 1.6 Follow risk-assessment procedures for child protection work 1.7 Focus on supporting the rights, interests and needs of children, young people and families 1.8 Ensure communication is age-appropriate, sensitive and respectful when dealing with children, young people and families |
2. Demonstrate ethical and safe work practices | 2.1 Observe lines of accountability in work undertaken in child protection and communicate decisions to relevant authorities 2.2 Ensure client rights are protected 2.3 Demonstrate effective worker safety/wellbeing and self-management activities in professional practices 2.4 Use the relevant code of ethics, professional and organisation standards to guide service delivery 2.5 Plan responses to address emergency situations and other contingencies based on ethical standards and organisation requirements 2.6 Support staff to identify and resolve ethical dilemmas 2.7 Acknowledge the challenges inherent in the work and develop strategies to address them |
Foundation Skills
The Foundation Skills describe those required skills (language, literacy, numeracy and employment skills) that are essential to performance. |
Oral communication – in order to facilitate collaborative discussions with children and their families. The remaining foundation skills essential to performance are explicit in the performance criteria of this unit. |