ARL Renewal Project
The Advice and Referral Line (ARL) was established in 2018 under the Strong Families, Safe Kids initiative as Tasmania’s single point of contact for child safety and wellbeing advice and reporting.
In 2024, a comprehensive review by the Department for Education, Children and Young People (DECYP) generated 22 key findings and 18 recommendations aimed at strengthening the service. These focused on clarifying and better managing scope, redesigning the delivery model and workforce structure, strengthening processes, governance and partnerships, and improving technology and data use.
The ARL Renewal Project launched in February 2025 and the Australian Centre for Child Protection (ACCP) was engaged to support the development of evidence-based advice to refine the role, scope, and assumptions underpinning the ARL.
Our approach
ACCP’s work to inform the ARL renewal comprised three core programs of work:
Evidence Briefs
ACCP developed a series of evidence briefs on key topics including case study analysis of Australian child protection intake reforms, definitional papers on early intervention, child protection thresholds and the public health approach, and key data to inform design and a review of the evidence regarding child protection assessment on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The Evidence Briefs played a key role in informing decision-making about revised thresholds and service system reforms.
The articulation of scope, roles and thresholds for child safety
ACCP took a cohort approach to defining and testing child safety scope and thresholds, articulating scope boundaries for child safety and other services (e.g., police, family support services) across a continuum of need articulated through a child, parent and reporter lens. Detailed analysis and systems planning was undertaken for key cohorts and issues (children with disability, adolescents with complex risks and needs, child sexual abuse, family and domestic violence and cumulative harm).
Intake Model Design to enable more rapid triage and response to child safety concerns
The development of the service system concept model recognised that demand at the front door is shaped not only by child maltreatment, but by system gaps, structural conditions, legislative frameworks, and mandatory reporter behaviour. Pathways through the service system were mapped for specific cohorts across a continuum of need with child safety and purposeful use of statutory powers as key considerations. Throughout the process, working sessions with the DECYP ARL Renewal Project Team ensured that emerging insights were “pressure-tested” against operational realities and policy priorities, grounding model design in real-world conditions.
The final body of work comprises a refined scope boundary with articulated principles, a conceptual triage model, implementation considerations, evidence briefs underpinning best available national evidence (see below), and consultation placemats.
Summary of Project Outputs
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Brief 1 - Understanding Need – Key Data and Statistics
An assessment of the prevalence of child abuse and neglect, contact with current statutory and non-statutory systems, understanding of the characteristics of families who are known to child protection systems, and key sociodemographic characteristics of the population of Tasmania.
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Brief 2 - Early Intervention and Prevention
An overview of the definitions of early intervention and prevention, and challenges in applying these definitions to practice
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Brief 3 - The Public Health Approach and Child Protection
Explaining the Public Health Approach and Responsive Regulation Framework, and applying these approaches to a proposed continuum that considers child safety and intensity of family need.
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Brief 4 - Child Protection Intake and Differential Response
An analysis of significant intake reforms in Australia that have shaped how child protection intake models operate across jurisdictions, highlighting that intake reform alone cannot reduce demand.
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Brief 5 - Child Protection Risk Assessment and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Families
Child rearing is a collective responsibility within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kinship systems built on trust, shared values and a community focus on the wellbeing of children. This brief overviews Aboriginal child rearing and key differences between Western, nuclear family and child rearing norms, and structural racism and inequity in assessment frameworks currently used in Australian child protection systems.
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Brief 6 - Key Legislative Definitions for Child Protection Intake
Key components of intake models, examining the legislative definitions that influence reporting behaviour.
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Brief 7 - Child Sexual Abuse Response Pathways Consultation
Mapping out the different contexts in which child sexual abuse occurs, is identified or disclosed and the different response pathways available in order to identify optimal responses to reports and information about child sexual abuse.
