Kinship Carers Victoria’s series of Resource Booklets and other resources for carers.
Legal community
Working with Children Check (WWCC)
Court orders – the role of Child Protection and the courts
New rules governing the CIMS
Podcast 37
The Client Incident Management System (CIMS) is the program that investigates reports of incidents made against carers who may have mistreated children in their care. There are reports made against kinship carers, but this does not happen very often. Over the years, KCV has witnessed some serious breaches of carers’ rights, particularly when a report is not upheld. Carers and children have been seriously affected by the unfairness of the processes over the years and are not compensated for years of trauma when a report is not upheld.
In this podcast, lawyer Fleur Ward talks about how the DFFH has undertaken a review of CIMS procedures and has released a new set of guidelines. Carers need to be aware that it is quite easy for a report to be made and that if one is made, they need to listen to this podcast and contact their support agency immediately.
Family reunification and the law
Podcast 32
In this video/podcast Director of Kinship Carers Victoria, Anne McLeish, and lawyer Fleur Ward talk about the complex and vexed issue of family reunification for carer families.
They speak in detail about the reunification provisions in the Children, Youth and Families Act (Vic) and how the current one-size-fits-all foundation of these provisions could mean that they are not serving their intended purpose. The rights of carers to access information contained in children’s court orders is also clarified.
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