A count of child and young person concern reports received by the DCJ Child Protection Helpline, during the reporting period.
A child and young person concern report relates to the initial contact made at the Child Protection Helpline from mandatory or non-mandatory reporters who have reasonable grounds to suspect a child or young person is at Risk of Significant Harm (ROSH) and has current concerns about the safety, welfare or wellbeing of the child/young person. Child and young person concern reports are then assessed to determine whether the threshold of significant harm is reached.
The child and young person concern report is classified according to whether the report meets the ROSH threshold or is assessed as requiring no further response at that point in time or alternatively can be forwarded for information or other action. Reports that do not meet the ROSH threshold are assessed as requiring no response at that point in time.
A concern report relates to the initial contact made at the Child Protection Helpline from mandatory or non-mandatory reporters. This provides an overview of need and allows a tracking over time.
Alignment: This aligns with national reporting in Report on Government Services (RoGS).
The Operational Business Review reports monthly.
The Annual Statistical Report reports annually.
Published by the NSW Department of Family and Community Services.
Given that a child may be reported multiple times, the total number of concern reports may be larger than the total number of children involved in concern reports (ie a child/young person may be subjected to multiple reports.)
Since the implementation of ChildStory, there has been a change in the way contact outcomes are reported. From 2017-18 onwards only the categories 'ROSH reports' and 'Non-ROSH reports' are used to report contact outcomes in child and young person concern reports. Risk of significant harm status refers to screening at the DCJ Child Protection Helpline. A child/young person is at risk of significant harm if the circumstances that are causing concern for their safety, welfare or wellbeing are present to a significant extent. This means it is sufficiently serious to warrant a response by a statutory authority irrespective of a family's consent.
Data ageing:
- Data Ageing is two months, unless otherwise indicated. Therefore, the data for this measure will be available two months after the end of the month in which the data first becomes available.
Data changes:
- From 2022-23, the District of Case Management Responsibility has replaced District for disaggregation in OOHC.
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Effective from 22 May 2026, the Child Protection and Permanency Operating Model has changed resulting in a redesign of geographical and operational boundaries. To ensure consistency with existing FACSIAR internal performance reports and external reporting, data under the new operating model has been mapped to the previous 17 districts for the remainder of the 2025–26 reporting period in this dashboard.
Data limitations:
- Nil.
Data source:
- Key Information and Directory System (KiDS)/Corporate Information Warehouse (CIW) for data before 2017-18.
- ChildStory/Minimum Data Set (MDS)/Corporate Information Warehouse (CIW) for data after 2017-18.