News 2022

New Practice Note 17: Designated agencies in Children's Court care proceedings

December 2022: The President of the Children’s Court has issued Practice Note 17 – Designated agencies in Children’s Court care proceedings.

Practice Note 17 applies to care proceedings where the primary case responsibility for the care of a child has been transferred to a designated agency under s 49 of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 (NSW).

Practice Note 17 promotes information sharing between the Court, the Department of Communities and Justice and designated agencies and clarifies the role of designated agencies in Children’s Court care proceedings.

Practice Note 17 will commence Monday 9 January 2023. 

Children's Law News

December 2022: CLN 2022 Volume 1 has now been published and includes a number of cases and a paper which are of relevance to the Children’s Court jurisdiction. 

Inside Policy - An evaluation of the Youth Koori Court Process (June 2022)

August 2022: In 2022, the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) engaged Inside Policy to design and implement an evaluation of the Youth Koori Court (YKC) and its processes. The report details the evaluation's findings against six evaluation questions:

1. How is the YKC operating?
2. To what extent is the YKC achieving or not achieving its intended objectives and outcomes?
3. What features, conditions, and practices of the YKC are contributing / not contributing to the YKC achieving its objectives and outcomes?
4. What are the opportunities for improvement and key considerations for the future of the YKC?
5. What are the costs and benefits of the YKC Process?
6. What are the costs of continuation and expansion of the YKC Process?

The final evaluation of the Youth Koori Court Processes was made publicly available on 6 June 2022 and can be found below. 

Inside Policy - An evaluation of the Youth Koori Court Process (June 2022) (PDF, 3.6 MB)

New Coronavirus Public Notice 15: 24 June 2022

June 2022: The President of the Children's Court has issued a further Public Notice no. 15 (PDF, 205.4 KB) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Public Notice represents the next phase in the Court's transition to business as usual. These changes will take effect from 18 July 2022. The Children's Court's Public Notices can be found at Public Notices and Announcements. 

Publication Guidelines for NSW Caselaw and Children's Court News

May 2022: The Children’s Court of NSW publishes its decisions through NSW Caselaw. The Court also produces a regular online publication known as Children's Law News that highlights important decisions and papers that have been published elsewhere and provides an avenue for the publication of papers relevant to the jurisdiction that are not otherwise available.

On 10 May 2022, the Children’s Court published a publication protocol that sets out the procedures followed by the Court for both the publication of decisions on NSW Caselaw and the publication of Children’s Law News.

New Practice Note 15: Request for the provision of services to facilitate restoration in care proceedings

April 2022: The Family is Culture Review Report, an Independent Review of Aboriginal Children and Young People in Out of Home Care (OOHC), was released in November 2019.  The Review made 125 recommendations about the way services are delivered to Aboriginal children and young people in OOHC.  

In response to recommendation 115 of the Review, the President of the Children's Court has issued Practice Note 15 – Request for the provision of services to facilitate restoration in care proceedings. The aim of the Practice Note is to help guide the process to be followed to enable the Children's Court to make appropriate requests for the provision of restoration services to a child or young person or their family consistent with s 85 of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1987.

Practice Note 15 commences on Monday 2 May 2022.    

Update on regional catchment areas for care and protection cases

March 2022: The President of the Children’s Court has published information on catchment areas for the Children's Court care and protection cases in regional areas.  Where a case is listed at another location for the purpose of considering urgent interim orders in accordance with paragraph 12.2 of Children’s Court Practice Note 5 the case should be returned to the filing court for case management unless an application to transfer the case to another location is determined by the Court.

The updated information can be found under the website's Listings tab.