Paralegal Officer

Ripley CSSC are seeking a paralegal officer to prepare court documents (eg. affidavits) and provide support and administrative assistance to child safety officers in preparing for court processes. This includes accessing departmental information systems and accurately extracting key information for use in court material.

Paralegal officers are based in Child Safety Service Centres and provide support to child safety officers across the region. Paralegal officers may be required to travel between Child Safety Service Centres.

As a Paralegal Officer you will:

• Provide administrative support to child safety officers and prepare court documents (eg. affidavits), in consultation with and under the direction of the child safety officer and/or senior team leader.
• Prepare court documents that demonstrate high level written communication skills, are well structured, objective, clear, concise and meet the required standards of both the department and the court.
• Competently access, understand and use information held in departmental information systems, in preparing affidavits and other court documents to support applications for child protection orders.
• Provide administrative support to senior team leaders in completing requests for information required for applications for child protection orders.
• Establish and maintain collaborative relationships with departmental legal officers to ensure that court documents adequately address legislative requirements.
• Work as part of a team to support child safety officers to meet rapidly changing priorities and ensure deadlines are met.
• Identify and promptly communicate key issues to the senior team leader that may impact on meeting designated tasks.
• Participate and contribute productively as a team member to form culturally appropriate, professional working relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Participate and contribute to a culture of continuous learning, training and professional development to ensure practice knowledge and skills are contemporary and evidence-based.
• Contribute to continuous quality improvement strategies.