Sharing when a child is subject to family harm (Family Violence Act)

Section 24 of the Family Violence Act requires that you actively consider sharing information about a victim or perpetrator of family violence to another FVA or SSP if you:

• believe on reasonable grounds that the sharing of information to that FVA or SSP will or may help ensure that a victim is protected from family violence
• receive a request from a FVA or SSP to share information for one or more of the purposes set out in section 20.

Section 20 of the Family Violence Act 2018 permits the sharing of personal information when the child or young person is or has been subject to family harm.

Under section 20 you can proactively share information, or you can share information in response to a request. 

Section 20 of the Family Violence Act 2018 permits the sharing of personal information between Family Violence Agencies (FVAs) and Social Sector Practitioners (SSPs). 

Family Violence Agencies (FVAs) are a group of organisations, and therefore their employees, or volunteers including:

Section 20 enables sharing information about a child who has been a victim of family violence where you reasonably believe that sharing the information will help the other FVA or SPP achieve one or more the following purposes:

• to help ensure that a victim is protected from family violence
• to make or contribute to a family violence risk or need assessment
• to make, or contribute to the making or carrying out of, a decision or plan relating or responding to family violence.

If you receive a section 20 request for information and the purpose of the request is unclear, you should clarify the request with the requestor. If you are unsure why the information is being requested, you won’t be able to determine whether one of the purposes set out in section 20 applies, or what information may be relevant to share with the requestor. 

You can share information that you believe is relevant to help achieve one or more of the purposes set out in section 20. Deciding what information is relevant will often be a judgment call and depend on the circumstances of each situation.

Things to consider when deciding whether information is relevant include:

• your knowledge of the child or young person and their circumstances
  • the person making the request, the purpose for which they are requesting the information and what they will be able to do with the information to support the child or young person
  • the age of the information – older information may be out of date and therefore less relevant to the current circumstances or needs of the child or young person
  • the context of the information – could the information be misinterpreted without additional context?

If you are unsure whether information you hold may be relevant, talk to the requestor or the person you want to share the information with. Together you may be able to identify what information is relevant in the circumstances. 

You do not need to obtain the consent of, or consult with, the child (or their parents, legal guardians or caregivers where appropriate) to share their information under section 20. 

You should, however, consider the best interests of the child – in some cases it may be in their best interests to let them know you are sharing their information, in other cases it could expose them to additional risk and harm. 

Talking with the child or young person (or the parents, legal guardians or caregivers where appropriate) can also help inform your decision about whether it is in their best interests to share their information in the circumstances. 

Sharing information under section 20 requires you to make a judgement call. Every circumstance will be different – in some cases you might decide to share, in others you might not. When you are under pressure, and a child or young person may be at risk, making these judgement calls can feel overwhelming. 

The Family Violence Act provides protection from civil, criminal and disciplinary proceedings when you share information under section 20 unless you have shared in bad faith. Bad faith includes when you don’t attempt to comply with the provision, or when you act carelessly or recklessly with information. 

Acting in good faith means you have:

• made your best effort to share in line with the relevant statutory provisions  
• checked that the information you intend to share is relevant, accurate, up to date complete and not misleading
• undertaken measures to ensure the information is shared safely with the right person in the right role.

Obligations of confidence protect information deemed to be confidential from unauthorised access and disclosure. However, obligations of confidence are subject to exceptions which include situations where a child or young person’s wellbeing or safety is at risk.

The Family Violence Act provides an exception to an obligation of confidence. The Act requires you to consider the principle that helping to ensure a victim is protected from family harm should usually take precedence over any applicable obligation to keep the information confidential.

However, you will need to ensure that:

• you are sharing for a purpose set out in section 20
• the confidential information is relevant to that purpose.

Your professional code of ethics, industry code of conduct or employment agreement will set out what information is considered confidential, under what circumstances that information may be shared and what you need to advise the child or young person when you are collecting their information.

If you determine that the requirements of section 20 have not been met, you can consider whether one of the following applies in the circumstances:

It is good practice to keep good records of your information sharing activities. 

At a minimum you should record:

• the request you received and from whom (including receipt and response date)
• any additional information you requested from the requestor
• your decision whether, or not, to share the information requested
• the specified purpose you shared the information
• the information that you shared.

An easy way to do this is to create an Information Sharing Register. This can be as simple as an excel spreadsheet. Registers will contain personal information, and in some cases sensitive information. It is important to keep your Register secure and limit access to only those that need to have access.

Section 20 authorises the sharing of personal information for specific purposes related to family violence. This means that you don’t need to rely on one of the exceptions to Information Privacy Principle (IPP) 11 to share the information with another FVA or SSP. 

However, you still need to comply with the other Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) in the Privacy Act. 

In practice, this means when you are sharing information under section 20 of the Family Violence Act, you must ensure you:

• share information in a safe and secure way and protect it from unauthorised access, use and disclosure (IPP 5)
• have taken reasonable steps to ensure the information is accurate, up to date, relevant, complete and not misleading information (IPP 8)
• are mindful about sharing unique identifiers (IPP 13).

When you are receiving information requested or provided under section 20 of the Family Violence Act, you must ensure you:

• are requesting the information necessary for a lawful purpose of your agency
• meet your notification requirements (IPP 3A after 1 May 2026)
• receive the information:
  • in a safe and secure way and protect it from unauthorised access, use and disclosure (IPP 5)
  • only retain the information for as long as it is necessary to do so (IPP 9).

Children and their representatives have the right to request access to and correction of their personal information under IPP 6 and 7. If you correct personal information or attach a statement of correction to personal information that is also information that you have shared under the Family Violence Act, you must, so far as is reasonably practicable, inform that FVA or SSP of the correction. 

The following examples work through the application of section 20 of the Family Violence Act.

Under the School Alerts programme schools can receive alerts about their learners who have been involved in a family harm episode in the last 24 hours. Names of the learners are provided to a participating school so they are aware of the incident, enabling them to identify and provide any additional supports learners may need while at school.

The legal authority for sharing the information with the participating school is section 20 of the Family Violence Act 2018. The information is proactively shared to a school for the purpose of helping to ensure that a victim is protected from or supported when they are experiencing family violence. Section 20 also provides the legal authority for the school principal to share the information with a learner’s teacher so that the teacher is aware and can contribute to the development of a support plan if one is required. 

If a school requires further information about the learner and the circumstances of the family harm incident, it can use section 20 to request additional information from a relevant FVA or an SSP. The school must, however, be requesting the additional information for one of the purposes in section 20.

A group of government agencies and local non-government organisations want to meet on a regular basis to discuss children and young people in their local area that have been subject to family harm. The purpose of the meeting is to identify and deliver appropriate interventions and supports for the children and young people and their family and whānau. 

Can the meeting participants share information?

To use section 20 all meeting participants must be a Family Violence Agency or a Social Services Practitioner. The organiser of the multi-agency meeting should check that the intended meeting participants are from a Family Violence Agency or a Social Services Practitioner before they are invited to the meeting.

Information can be shared for one of the purposes set out in section 20C. In this case, the purpose of the meeting is to share information to enable the meeting participants to undertake an in-depth needs assessment to identify appropriate interventions and supports and who is best placed to provide those to the child and their family and whānau.

Sharing for the purposes of undertaking a risk or need assessment, and making, or contributing to the making or carrying out of, a decision or plan relating or responding to family violence are two of the purposes of section 20. 

While section 20 provides the legal authority to share the information, the meeting participants must still comply with IPP 5 (security and storage) and IPP 8 (accuracy) requirements when considering what and how to share the information between agencies.  They will also need to consider how to manage any personal information they have received, which will be subject to IPP 1 and 4 (lawful purpose for collection, necessity, method of collection), IPP 5 (security and storage), IPP 6 and 7 (access and correction rights), IPP 8 (accuracy), IPP 9 (retention), and IPP 13 (unique identifiers). 

For regular multi-agency meetings, we recommend creating an Information Sharing Protocol that sets out the purpose of the meetings, what information can be shared at the meeting, and how that information will be used by the meeting participants. The agreement can also set out the methods by which the information will be shared and how it will be kept safe and secure. This ensures personal information about children and young people is shared in a way that is privacy protective.

A mental health counsellor has been working with a young child. Over the last few sessions, the counsellor has observed bruising on the child’s legs and arms and has noticed some behaviour changes indicating the child may be experiencing physical harm. The counsellor wants to share this information with Police.

Can the counsellor share that information? 

As the counsellor is a Social Services Practitioner, and the Police is a Family Violence Agency the counsellor is able to use section 20 of the Family Violence Act to share relevant information with the Police. In this case, the purpose for sharing the information is to ensure the young person is protected from family violence. 

Not all the information the counsellor holds about the young person will be relevant to the purpose of protecting them from family violence. The relevant information will be that which relates to the bruising and behaviours that have led to the counsellor suspecting family violence is occurring. 

The counsellor is likely to have a professional duty to ensure the confidentiality of any information the young person has shared with them during the counselling sessions. However, the guiding principle for sharing information under section 20 is that helping to ensure a victim is protected from family violence should usually take precedence of any duty to keep information confidential. This means that the counsellor can share relevant information with the Police, even if where a duty of confidence may exist.