New South Wales Consolidated Acts

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS (CARE AND PROTECTION) ACT 1998 - SECT 27

27 Mandatory reporting

(1) This section applies to:

(a) a person who, in the course of his or her professional work or other paid employment delivers health care, welfare, education, children’s services, residential services, or law enforcement, wholly or partly, to children, and

(b) a person who holds a management position in an organisation the duties of which include direct responsibility for, or direct supervision of, the provision of health care, welfare, education, children’s services, residential services, or law enforcement, wholly or partly, to children.

(2) If:

(a) a person to whom this section applies has reasonable grounds to suspect that a child is at risk of harm, and

(b) those grounds arise during the course of or from the person’s work,

the person must, as soon as practicable, report to the Director-General the name, or a description, of the child and the grounds for suspecting that the child is at risk of harm.

Maximum penalty: 200 penalty units.

(3) A person to whom this section applies satisfies his or her obligations under subsection (2) in relation to two or more children that constitute a particular class of children if the person reports that class of children to the Director-General together with:

(a) a description that is sufficient to identify all the children who constitute the class, and

(b) the grounds for suspecting that the children of that class are at risk of harm.