Paralegal Officer

**About Child Safety**:
Child protection in Queensland is undergoing a significant reform to ensure that children and young people are cared for, protected and safe.
The Supporting Families Changing Futures reform plan focuses on delivering the right services at the right time to support families and keep children safely at home. This means working in partnership with peak bodies, service providers and communities to deliver the best outcomes for all Queensland children and their families.
As part of the reform process, a framework for practice has been developed. One that will build on existing skills of engaging with families so they can participate more meaningfully in the child protection process. This includes developing stronger collaborative assessment, case planning and safety planning processes. The framework for practice will also bring a practice of inquiry to help address over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families.

**Key Duties and Responsibilities**:

- Provide administrative support to child safety officers and prepare court documents (eg. affidavits), in consultation with and under the direction of the child safety officer and/or senior team leader.
- Prepare court documents that demonstrate high level written communication skills, are well structured, objective, clear, concise and meet the required standards of both the department and the court.
- Establish and maintain collaborative relationships with departmental legal officers to ensure that court documents adequately address legislative requirements.
- Work as part of a team to support child safety officers to meet rapidly changing priorities and ensure deadlines are met.
- Identify and promptly communicate key issues to the senior team leader that may impact on meeting designated tasks.
- Participate and contribute productively as a team member to form culturally appropriate, professional working relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
- Particiate and contribute to a culture of continuous learning, training and professional development to ensure practice knowledge and skills are contemporary and evidence-based.
- Contribute to continuous quality improvement strategies.

Applications to remain current for 12 months.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License.