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Office of Professional Practice

The Office includes the Senior Practitioner Disability, the Statewide Principal Practitioner Aboriginal Children and Families and the Statewide Principal Practitioner Family Violence. They support professionals to adopt leading practice approaches and to provide effective care for the safety of all clients.
On this page

The office is led by the Chief Practitioner Human Services and Director, whose role it is to enable timely and authoritative advice on practice matters in relation to child protection and disability services.

Functions of the office

  • It leads and contributes to research and service development initiatives within the organisation and in collaboration with other leading institutions
  • It takes a leading role for promoting a learning culture that integrates evidence-based practice and critical reflection
  • It provides advice and direction to the service sector in the respective fields.
  • It delivers practice leadership in child protection, family violence and disability sector
  • It provides operational service delivery to Secure Welfare Services and the Disability Forensic Assessment and Treatment Service
  • It works to support the rights of people subject to restrictive interventions and compulsory treatment, through the Senior Practitioner – Disability, and develops standards in relation to these services.

Other functions include:

  • Responding to behaviours of concern
  • Driving practice improvements through data analysis 
  • Supporting workforce capability
  • Modelling practice leadership.

Further information

If you have any concerns about the safety of a child go to the Reporting child abuse and neglect page on this website.

Senior Practitioner, Disability

The Senior Practitioner is responsible for ensuring that the rights of persons who are subject to restrictive interventions and compulsory treatment are protected, and that appropriate standards in relation to restrictive interventions and compulsory treatment are complied with. Disability Act 2006, Section 23 (2) (a)

The role of the Senior Practitioner is to:

  • Evaluate and monitor the use of restrictive interventions in disability services
  • Develop guidelines and standards
  • Provide education and information to disability service providers
  • Develop links to professionals and academic institutions to facilitate knowledge and training in clinical practice
  • Research restrictive interventions and compulsory treatment.

Resources

Child Protection

The Child Protection teams in the Office of Professional Practice provide a range of supports, information and services to promote the development of practice for the Victorian child protection program. The OPP publishes the Chief Practitioner's monthly Good Practice Bulletins and publishes the annual Good Practice snapshot. The OPP undertakes case reviews on individual children and cohorts of children at risk. Key portfolios areas are:

  • Practice frameworks and risk assessment tools and guidance
  • Child protection practice resources
  • Coordination of the department's response to child death inquires
  • Child sexual exploitation
  • Family law court and Victoria Police liaison
  • Coordinating referrals for sex offender and family violence assessments to Forensicare
  • Information exchange with the Department of Justice and Regulation for Community Corrections, Working with Children's Checks, and prisoners.

Resources

Consultation requests

Consultation requests

The office accepts requests to review a case or provide case consultation support from client services, families, external review bodies and senior departmental staff.

Persons with a disability, a parent/ guardian or an advocate can request a review of matters related to restrictive intervention or compulsory treatment by completing a case review request form. If you would like to request any training from the office please contact us.

Contact

To contact the Office of Professional Practice:

Consultation forms