Access to legal records by children leaving State care: The experience of young people in NSW

Abstract

For those who have been in the care of the State as children, access to records can be critical to securing justice and redress for past wrongs. This article outlines the arguments made in recent litigation undertaken by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) on behalf of young people who requested access to legal audits conducted on their files by the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Family and Community Services (FACS). It documents the policy change that was achieved as a result of the litigation and makes recommendations for further reform to better realise the rights of children in care to access their records.

Forming a new and unexpected relationship through digital technologies: Lessons for child and family social work

“…None of this, however, takes away from the absences in the case files: the people whose names have been removed from the records and the people whose voices were never recorded in the first place, as well as the countless files that were lost or destroyed along the way. Nor does it address to any degree the pressing issue of justice and the need to find ways of redressing past wrongs, as outlined in recent research on the experiences of young people in the New South Wales care system (Greenwood, Mansour and Winnett, 2019).…”