Checklist - Care Leavers: Making an application for out-of-home care records under the GIPA Act

• An agency may be able to provide you with advice and assistance if you contact the agency and explain that you would like to access your care records.
• Agencies may also discuss options with you, such as informal arrangements and support services for accessing care leaver records.

• Requests made under the GIPA Act must be for records held by NSW agencies.  
• If you were relocated in care arrangements in other states or territories, you should consider seeking access to records under that state or territory’s information access laws.

What happens when you make an application for your OOHC records under the GIPA Act?

• When you make a formal request for information under the GIPA Act, the Act requires the agency to provide you with assistance and advice. This may be particularly important if it is difficult for you to identify historical care records over a long period of time.
• When you make a formal application, you will receive the agency’s reasons about whether to provide you with access to the OOHC records, and you may also seek a review of their decision.

Have you identified that you are a care leaver who is applying for access to your OOHC records?

• IPC Guideline 8 Care Leavers’ access to OOHC records refers to ‘care leavers’ as all people who have left out-of-home care in New South Wales, including in the last century. This includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons and people who arrived in Australia as child migrants.
• Care leaver records may be about your foster care, kinship care, or your time living in government orphanages, children’s homes, or other institutional residential care.
• It is important that your application is as specific as possible and provides details about your care arrangements. You may have been a baby or young child and do not know very much other than the time that you were living in out-of-home care. However, providing this detail can assist the agency to identify the records and provide you with those records.

Which agencies may hold your OOHC records?

• Many NSW government agencies hold records relating to OOHC arrangements. This mainly includes the Department of Communities and Justice which comprises the former Department of Family and Community Services and NSW Department of Justice. Other agencies can include, the NSW Trustee and Guardian, Police Force NSW, and the NSW Department of Education.
• Sometimes more than one agency will hold the information. An agency may be able to assist you in obtaining information from other organisations that provided care.

Have you described the type of information that you are seeking?

• It may be difficult for you to identify the actual records, but it would assist an agency to locate information if you describe details about your care, such as the time period (e.g. when, how many years you were in statutory care, and whether your request concerns records for all or some of these years)
• It will help to identify whether you are seeking historical records, or more recent records upon leaving care as a young care leaver. It may assist if you are able to provide your date of birth.
• If you are seeking a large amount of information, you should be as specific as possible. An access request that seeks a large volume of records may not be dealt with by the agency.

• You are not required to explain why you are seeking access to your OOHC records when you make an application under the GIPA Act.
• However, an agency may take into account your personal factors as reasons to provide you with the information.
• For applicants who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander persons, access to OOHC or institutional care records may also provide knowledge of kin, community, heritage and culture.
• Personal factors can also include:
  • your identity and relationship with another person
  • why the information is important to you, for example, information may provide unique and significant personal information about your childhood, care history, knowledge of and relationship with family and biological relatives.

Are you seeking information about other people, such as relatives or carers?

• You can request information about other people, including carers or kinship carers, carers’ relatives, biological family members or kin whose personal information is contained in the records.
• It is important to say why you are seeking this information because the agency is required to ask any third party who is identified in the information about whether they object to the release of information.

Have you asked the agency about a discount for the cost of processing your application?

• Agencies may decide that you are entitled to a fee discount or no fees in some circumstances, including where the application is for personal information.
• A discount may apply to your application for your OOHC records, as your records are about your personal information.
• If you are experiencing financial hardship, you may be able to apply for a financial hardship discount.