CSO roles

Joining our department as a Child Safety Officer is the first step towards a rewarding career where you'll make an extraordinary difference to the lives of some of Queensland's most at-risk children and their families.

The role is statutory, which means it has responsibility under the Child Protection Act 1999 to respond to serious concerns about the welfare and safety of children.

Our Child Safety Officers work in teams (often multi-disciplinary) based in service centres covering specific geographical areas.

Child Safety Officers are supported by a Senior Team Leader who provides supervision, advice, guidance and assistance in managing day-to-day case work tasks and decisions.

Child Safety Officer roles and responsibilities

The core responsibilities of a Child Safety Officer include risk assessment and bringing together vulnerable children, young people, their families, carers and other child and family support services to meet case plan needs. These skills apply across all areas of the child protection continuum:

• Intake — responsibilities include receiving information about concerns for a child's safety and assessing the information to determine the right response.
• Investigation and assessment — responsibilities include investigating concerns received about harm or risk of harm to a child and determining whether the child is in need of protection.
• Intervention with parental agreement — responsibilities include working with parents where it's been assessed that their child is in need of protection, and the parents have agreed to work with our Child Safety Officers to make changes to meet the child's needs while the child remains at home. This includes developing and managing case plans with the family and making referrals to support services.
• Children under child protection orders — responsibilities include working with children under child protection orders who are living in foster and kinship care or residential care arrangements. This includes supporting children and their parents to meet case plan goals towards reunification or permanency outcomes.
• Placement services — responsibilities include providing statutory care placements for children who are unable to live with their own families. It includes working with child safety service centre teams and service providers to match children with suitable carers to meet the support and cultural needs of children.

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