Department for Child Protection (Western Australia)
former Western Australian Government Department
The Department for Child Protection was part of the Government of Western Australia.
It was created in response to a critical review of the Department of Community Development in January 2007. At the time of its establishment, the government also mandated reporting of child sexual abuse.
In July 2017, the department was amalgamated with the Department of Housing, the Department of Local Government and Communities and the Disability Services Commission to form the Department of Communities.
Responsibilities
The department administers acts and regulations which include the following:
Adoption Act 1994
Adoption Regulations 1995
Children and Community Services Act 2004
Children and Community Services Regulations 2006
Parental Support and Responsibility Act 2008
Parental Support and Responsibility Regulations 2009
Working with Children (Criminal Record Checking) Act 2004
Working with Children (Criminal Record Checking) Regulations 2005.
The Children and Community Services Act 2004, came into operation on 1 March 2006, the department came into existence on 1 July 2007
The legislation that governs the department's three service areas:
Supporting children and young people in the chief executive officer's care.
Protecting children and young people from abuse.
Supporting individuals and families at risk or in crisis.
The department also has the capacity for information sharing where it benefits child protection
Former agencies
(Other agencies might have had overlap in relation to Aboriginal children, but these are the main names
1908 – 1917 Public Charities and State Children's Department.
1917 – 1927 State Children's Department.
The public source identifies “Department for Child Protection (Western Australia)” as former Western Australian Government Department. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Department, Child and Protection.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Department for Child Protection (Western Australia)”, the useful work is to connect “former Western Australian Government Department” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5260108. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2007, 2017, 1994 and 1995.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Department for Child Protection (Western Australia)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.