Participating

Care Teams and Care Plans

Your Care Team is a group of your important people, created to support you to be safe and well. All children and young people involved with Child Safety should have a Care Team and a Care Plan, and be able to participate – even if this is not face-to-face.

Here is a new Care Team Record. It is a way that Care Teams can write down plans about what’s going well, and what needs to improve. This Care Team Record is flexible so you can participate however you need to:

  • You can be present at your Care Team meeting. You may even want to chair the meeting (which means to be the facilitator or leader)
  • You can call in or use a video link (like Skype).
  • You might prefer to share your views with an adult in your Care Team before the meeting instead, and you could use a copy of this Care Team Care Plan document (PDF, 128KB).
  • You can send in your views on a video message.
  • Soon, you will be able to access an online questionnaire called Viewpoint to share your views.

Whatever you choose, it is important that you are included in your Care Team and your Care Plan.

There are other options you might prefer like this one below, called “All About Me”. You can also access a printer friendly version of the All About Me Case and Care Plan document (PDF, 895KB).

Viewpoint

Coming soon… Viewpoint is an online questionnaire currently being created so that you can have a say in the plans and decisions about your care and wellbeing.

Viewpoint will ask you questions based on the Tasmanian Child and Youth Wellbeing Framework.

Your answers will help your Care Team to create your Care Plan.

The Child Advocate is working with young people in care through the Youth Change Makers network to develop the questions for Viewpoint. At this stage, Viewpoint will be up and running around the middle of 2020. Stay tuned!

Legislation

Did you know that the law says that children and young people have the right to participate in decisions about them?

If you are interested, the legislation that says how all the legal things in Child Safety needs to work is the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act 1997. In  Part 1A, Section 10F says:

If a decision is, or is to be, made under this Act in relation to a child –

(a) the child –

(i) should be provided with adequate information and explanation about the decision in a manner that the child can understand;

(ii) if appropriate having regard to the child’s maturity and understanding, should be provided with the opportunity to respond to the proposed decision;

(iii) if appropriate having regard to the child’s maturity and understanding, should be provided with the opportunity to express his or her views freely;

(iv) should be provided with assistance in expressing those views

(b) the views of the child should be taken into account, having regard to the child’s maturity and understanding.

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