Introduction
It is vital that practitioners and managers take notice of explicit or implicit threats to a child, parent or carer's safety, which are made by a parent or caregiver. Child protection practitioners must consult with a supervisor and take appropriate immediate and longer term action as required in these procedures.
See Threats to kill a child, parent or carer - advice for detailed information on this topic.
Procedure
Case practitioner tasks
- Consult your team manager in all cases where a threat to kill has been made against a child or young person, parent or carer, regardless of whether the threat was made in a report to child protection, or identified in the course of child protection involvement.
- Report a threat to kill a child, parent or carer to Police. For family violence matters contact the relevant Victoria Police Family Violence Team.
- Record the outcome of consultation and any Police advice on CRIS.
- Complete or update the MARAM assessment in CRIS and record an appropriate risk rating for consideration as part of the overall risk assessment or review risk assessment. Include the relevant family violence risk factors in the essential information categories in CRIS.
- Consult the specialist family violence worker or senior child protection practitioner (family violence) about possible referral to a Risk Assessment Management Panel (RAMP).
- Develop a safety plan to address immediate safety needs, including emergency accommodation options and other crisis response needs where required. Crisis response may include child or an adult crisis mental health assessment or drug and alcohol assessment and treatment service.
- Place an alert against the person who made the threat to kill in CRIS.
Team manager tasks
- Consider convening a case conference to plan intervention required to ensure a child’s safety following a threat to kill a child, parent or carer. The case conference could be chaired by a senior practitioner, practice leader or yourself. If you do not convene a case conference, record your rationale in CRIS.
- Endorse the risk assessment on CRIS.
- Decide whether sufficient safety exists to close a case following a threat to kill and record the rationale in CRIS.
Additional information