Swimming Pools Act 1992 review - CDRT submission 2012

The NSW Child Death Review Team (the Team / CDRT) is established under Part 5A of the Community Services (Complaints, Reviews and Monitoring) Act 1993. The purpose of the Team is to prevent and reduce the deaths of children in NSW. The functions of the Team include maintaining a register of child deaths and identifying trends in relation to those deaths; undertaking research that aims to help prevent or reduce the likelihood of child deaths; and making recommendations as to legislation, policies, practices and services to prevent or reduce the likelihood of child deaths. The NSW Ombudsman is the Team’s Convenor, and Ombudsman staff support the Team in its work.

Separately, the Ombudsman has responsibility for reviewing ‘reviewable’ deaths. Reviewable deaths of children are those that occur as a result of abuse or neglect, or in suspicious circumstances, and the deaths of children in care. The purpose of the work largely mirrors that of the CDRT: to monitor and review reviewable deaths and maintain a register of these deaths; to undertake research; and to make recommendations aimed at reducing or removing risk factors associated with reviewable deaths that are preventable.Between 1996 and 2010, the CDRT registered the drowning deaths of 114 children in swimming pools in NSW. Thirty eight of these deaths were reviewable deaths, on the basis that they were neglect related or suspicious of neglect.

The Ombudsman defines a death as neglect related if the actions of a parent or carer demonstrate an intentional or significantly careless failure to adequately supervise a child, or constitute a significantly careless act.