Mandatory Reporting in the ACT: What Foster Carers Are Legally Required to Do
One of the first things foster carers in the ACT discover is that their legal obligations extend well beyond the child in their care. As an authorized carer, you have child-protection reporting responsibilities under the Children and Young People Act 2008 (ACT). All adults can make a voluntary report about suspected abuse, neglect, or risk of abuse or neglect. Whether the statutory mandatory-reporting duty applies depends on your role and how you learned the information; mandated reporters must report suspected sexual abuse or non-accidental physical injury learned through their work.
If you are a mandated reporter, the statutory duty is not optional: it applies to information obtained through your work about suspected sexual abuse or non-accidental physical injury. All adults can still make a voluntary report about suspected abuse, neglect, or risk of abuse or neglect. Understanding exactly what the law requires, and how to fulfill that obligation, is a core competency for anyone fostering in the ACT.
Who Is a Mandatory Reporter in the ACT?
The ACT takes a targeted approach to mandatory reporting. Not every adult in the Territory is a mandatory reporter — the obligation applies to people in specific professional roles who have regular contact with children.
Under the Children and Young People Act 2008, mandated reporters include people in certain professional or service roles, such as:
- Health practitioners (doctors, nurses, midwives, psychologists)
- Teachers and school staff
- Childcare workers and early childhood educators
- Police officers
- Persons in religious ministry The current ACT Government guidance does not identify foster carers as a separate mandated-reporter category. Foster carers can make voluntary reports, and a mandatory duty may apply where the carer also holds a listed role and obtains the information through that work.
What Triggers a Report: "Significant Harm"
For a mandated reporter, the statutory threshold is reasonable grounds to suspect that a child they work with has experienced or is experiencing sexual abuse or non-accidental physical injury, based on information obtained through their work. Any person can also make a voluntary report about suspected abuse, neglect, or risk of abuse or neglect.
For voluntary reports, concerns can include:
- Physical abuse — including non-accidental injury, excessive physical punishment, or patterns of physical harm
- Sexual abuse — any form of sexual contact or exploitation involving a child
- Emotional or psychological abuse — sustained patterns of cruelty, humiliation, or behavior that damages a child's emotional development
- Neglect — failure to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision, to the point where the child's health or development is endangered
- Exposure to family violence — witnessing domestic violence in the home is recognized as a form of significant harm in its own right in the ACT
For a voluntary report, you do not need to prove the concern. For a mandated report, the statutory duty concerns reasonable grounds to suspect the specified sexual abuse or non-accidental physical injury.
For foster carers, this becomes relevant in situations beyond the child placed in your home. If a child at school discloses something, if you observe something concerning at a contact visit involving a sibling, or if a child in your neighborhood has signs of neglect, you can make a voluntary report in each of those situations. If you are a mandated reporter because of another role, the mandatory duty applies within that role and to relevant information obtained through that work.
What to Report and to Whom
Reports in the ACT are made to Child and Youth Protection Services (CYPS), which operates under the Community Services Directorate (CSD).
For urgent matters — where a child is in immediate danger — call 000 first, then notify CYPS.
For reports, contact CYPS directly:
- Mandated reporters: 1300 556 728
- Public or voluntary reports: 1300 556 729
- Online: Report a risk of significant harm to a child
When you make a report, you will be asked to provide:
- Your name and contact details, if requested
- The child's name, age, and location if known
- The nature of your concern and what you have observed or been told
- The child's current location and whether they are safe right now
- Information about the child's parents or guardians if relevant
You are not required to investigate. You are not required to gather evidence or confront the alleged perpetrator. Your role is to report what you know or believe, and CYPS takes it from there.
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Confidentiality and Who Else Gets Told
Mandatory reporters are protected from civil and criminal liability for making a report in good faith, even if the report is ultimately found to be unsubstantiated. This protection is explicit in the Children and Young People Act 2008.
The identity of a mandatory reporter is kept confidential by CYPS. Parents or caregivers of the child you report about will not be told who made the report. This confidentiality exists to protect reporters from retaliation and to encourage reporting without fear.
For foster carers, there is an additional layer of complexity. If the concern relates to the child placed in your home, follow your foster care agency's incident-notification procedure as well as making the CYPS report. Your agency's caseworker needs to be aware, because the concern may affect placement decisions, contact arrangements, or the child's Care Plan.
If the concern relates to another child — a neighbor's child, a school peer — you can still report to CYPS, and should ask your agency whether its incident process is also engaged.
Record Keeping Obligations for Foster Carers
As an authorized carer in the ACT, you are required to maintain detailed records of the child's life in your care. This includes medical appointments, school progress, behavioral observations, and significant incidents.
This record-keeping is not merely administrative housekeeping — it feeds directly into mandatory reporting. If you observe a pattern of concerning behavior over time, your records may provide the documented basis for a report. CYPS investigators may request access to your notes as part of their assessment.
The ACT system requires carers to maintain a Child's Life Story record alongside the day-to-day care records. This is both a developmental document for the child and a contemporaneous account of their time in your care. In the event of a mandatory reporting situation, having detailed, dated records significantly strengthens the quality of the information you can provide to CYPS.
What Happens After You Report
Once a report is received, CYPS has a statutory obligation to assess it. The response time and type of investigation depend on the assessed urgency:
- Urgent response: Where a child is believed to be in danger right now, CYPS prioritises the matter, typically in coordination with ACT Policing.
- Other reports: CYPS assesses the information and determines the response according to the assessed risk and circumstances.
- Consultation: For reports that are ambiguous or low-risk, CYPS may seek additional information from the reporter before deciding whether to investigate.
CYPS is not obligated to tell you the outcome of the investigation. In most cases, reporters receive limited feedback. If the matter involves a child placed in your care, your agency caseworker and the child's CYPS case manager will keep you informed of decisions that affect the placement, but the specific investigative findings are typically not shared with reporters.
The Emotional Weight of Mandatory Reporting
Foster carers — particularly those caring for children who have already been removed from their birth families — often experience significant emotional difficulty around mandatory reporting. There is a tension between wanting to support a birth family and fulfilling a legal obligation when concerns arise during contact visits or family interactions.
The ACT's foster care framework is built around restorative practice, which emphasizes supporting birth families rather than surveilling them. But restorative practice does not override child-protection reporting responsibilities. If you observe something that meets the relevant reporting threshold, report it regardless of your therapeutic goals for the family.
Your agency provides 24/7 on-call support for exactly these situations. If you are uncertain whether what you have observed meets the reporting threshold, call your caseworker before deciding not to report. If you are a mandated reporter, the statutory duty is personal to you.
Preparing for This Role
Child-protection reporting responsibilities are covered in the Shared Stories, Shared Lives pre-service training, and your agency will walk through the CYPS reporting process during the authorization stage. But many carers find that the abstract training does not fully prepare them for the real-world situations where reporting decisions have to be made quickly.
The Australian Capital Territory Foster Care Guide includes a detailed section on mandatory reporting — what the ACT legislation requires, how to document observations that may support a report, and how to navigate the dual role of carer-advocate and statutory reporter in the ACT's integrated system.
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