Real-time Rights-based Recordkeeping Governance – Setting the Record Straight: For the Rights of the Child

An Australian Research Council Discovery Project investigating the governance of systems to support the recordkeeping rights of people who experience childhood out-of-home Care.

An exciting interdisciplinary collaboration between recordkeeping, information law and human rights scholars in Australia and the UK to develop a dynamic, digitally enabled, real-time, rights based recordkeeping governance framework.

The project aims to

develop participatory information governance as a new theoretical foundation for the regulation and systemisation of multiple rights in recordkeeping for childhood out-of-home Care,
explore how records co-creation can be conceptualised in child protection and information law and overseen dynamically in a child-centred and rights-based advocacy and regulatory framework,
articulate the audit and oversight responsibilities of an independent recordkeeping and rights of the child advocate, and
digitally model the recordkeeping informatics of its macro and micro functions, incorporating the analytics required to ensure the effective and efficient monitoring of recordkeeping rights for children, young people and adults with Care experiences.

Events

Future Directions in Rights-based Recordkeeping for Out-of-Home Care Symposium

On the afternoon of the 14 November 2024, researchers, policy makers, advocates, and practitioners interested in reviewing recent rights-based recordkeeping research initiatives came together to discuss how the profile of recordkeeping within debates about Care system reforms may be raised by co-ordinated action and advocacy.

Participatory Rights of Children in Care Panel at the 2024 Annual Castan Centre for Human Rights Law Conference

A panel featuring Liana Buchanan, the Victorian Commissioner for Children and Young People, Amelia Hunt, Project Officer, Victorian Commission for Children and Young People and
the project’s Research Fellow, Dr Jade Purtell, to spotlight the expertise of individuals with lived experience of out-of-home care in practice, advocacy and research contexts.

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Presentations

31 October 2024 – Jade Purtell, Lara Gerrand (Kids First Australia) and Anna presented ‘Meaningful conversations…’ Co-creating care records for memory, identity and accountability needs of care experienced people at OPEN Symposium 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckKx6OptoXw
16 March 2023 – Jade Purtell, Naima (CREATE Foundation) and Rhiannon Abeling presented ‘People talk at you, not to you’: Implications of routine practices in alternative care for pregnant and parenting teens at the Exchang Wales and INTRAC (International Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood from Care) It takes a village: Global perspectives on Care experienced parents Webinar https://youtu.be/7q71iqXT70Q?si=_ZjMvcLs6F8rJ_ZW&t=1754

Publications

Evans, J., Paterson, M., Castan, M., Purtell, J., & Ballin, M. (2024). Participatory and proactive: Real-time rights-based recordkeeping governance for the alternative care of children. Records Management Journal. 34(2/3), 171–189. https://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-11-2023-0069. Note: the Author Accepted Manuscript is available on open access from the Monash Bridges repository.
Ballin, M. (2024). “Somebody has to be crazy about that kid”: Speculating on the transformative recordkeeping potential of the caring corporate parent. Archival Science. 24(4), 871–896. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-024-09464-8.
Paterson, M. (2021). Records management and the rights of children in care. Precedent (Australian Lawyers Alliance, Sydney, N.S.W.), 166, September/October 2021. 34–38. Open access version available in Austlii.

Submissions

Real-time Rights-based Recordkeeping Governance is funded through an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grant DP200100017. The Chief Investigators are Associate Professor Joanne Evans (Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University), Professor Moira Paterson (Faculty of Law, Monash University), Associate Professor Melissa Castan (Faculty of Law & Castan Centre for Human Rights, Monash University), and Professor Elizabeth Shepherd (Department of Information Studies, University College London).