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Child Safety Directors' Network

• About the network
• Membership
• Governance
• Further information

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About the network

The Child Safety Directors’ Network (CSDN) supports the Queensland Government’s child protection system across the continuum from prevention and early intervention to statutory intervention and ensures child protection is a whole-of-Government responsibility.

The CSDN operates at the strategic whole-of-system level and leads the coordination, communication and strategic planning in the child protection system in Queensland to promote the safety and wellbeing of children and to find solutions to complex child protection issues.

The CSDN plays a key role in facilitating service responses, identifying emerging issues and gaps in service delivery, enhancing multi-agency collaboration and driving potential Government responses to emerging issues.

Membership

The Deputy Director-General of our department is the chair.

Child Safety Directors have been established within each of the following government agencies which have been identified as having a key role in the delivery of child protection services:

• Department of Communities (including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships)
• Department of Corrective Services
• Department of Education, Training and the Arts
• Department of Housing
• Department of Justice and Attorney-General
• Department of the Premier and Cabinet
• Disability Services Queensland
• Queensland Health
• Queensland Police Service
• Queensland Treasury.

The Assistant Commissioner, Commission for Children and Young People and Child Guardian is also a founding member of the network.

The executive and project support to the CSDN sits within the Policy and Programs Division of the Department of Child Safety. Our department is also represented by senior officers from the Policy and Programs and Child Safety Services Divisions.

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Governance

The CSDN reports every six months to the Premier through the Director-General, Department of the Premier and Cabinet, on whole-of-Government strategies, policies or contentious issues identified and addressed by the CSDN. The network is required to provide robust self-evaluation as part of the report.

Each Child Safety Director also has reporting responsibilities to their respective Director-General.

The CSDN is responsible for driving the government’s child-focused strategic direction and solutions to achieve integrated and holistic child protection policies, practices and services, by:

• improving coordination in the planning and delivery of child protection services
• facilitating system-level strategic policy responses
• enhancing collaboration and information sharing - including using learnings from the Child Death Review Committee and the Child Death Case Review Committee, as well as participation in the Child Protection Partnership Forum and the Domestic and Family Violence whole-of-Government Senior Officers Group
• improving communication and support at significant times in the child’s life, especially at key life stages and particularly when a child or young person is transitioning from care or when reunifying with parents
• improving operation of the child protection system through a shared sense of roles and responsibilities of participating agencies in meeting the needs of children and families who are in contact with the child protection system
• identifying gaps, issues and risks with the operation of the child protection system and developing coordinated responses to address these gaps and issues
• providing recommendations to the Department of the Premier and Cabinet regarding system improvements, policy development, emerging trends in broader child protection system and potential responses.

As members of the CSDN, Child Safety Directors will be responsible for:

• improving responsiveness within individual departments to meet the needs of children across the protection continuum
• acting as child protection leaders and expert advisors on child protection matters within individual departments. This has both a strategic policy function as well as a role in the overview of the child protection operational functions.
• ensuring effective interagency communication and pursuing appropriate policies and programs outside of the CSDN to progress child protection initiatives
• implementing decisions made by the CSDN with whole-of-Government implications within individual departments
• ensuring that their individual departments are adequately represented in formulating relevant CSDN decisions.

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Further information

For futher information about the CSDN, contact:

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Last updated

14 July 2008