A Longitudinal Study to Better Understand Child Protection Intervention for First Nations Children

Understanding the investigation-stage overrepresentation of First Nations children in the child welfare system: An analysis of the First Nations component of the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect 2008

Western systems of child protection cannot protect First Nations children. Australia’s current child protection systems were born from a legislated and explicit intention of destroying the culture, language and identity of First Nations children, with the aim of assimilating and eliminating First Nations people. The ongoing overrepresentation of our children in ‘child protection’ systems does not so much reflect inherent risks in our families as it does the systemic failures and harm being imposed on our children and families. To ensure the safety of our children, we need to end the systemic and structural racism within Australia’s child protection systems, empower self-determination and commit to addressing the social, economic and cultural determinants that underpin child safety and protection. To achieve this, we need an effective system of care for our children that is best achieved through First Nations systems of child wellbeing and safety that are leading practice. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (ATSICPP), which recognises our systems of kinship care, is one such mechanism. However, it is currently compromised, undermined and underutilised across all Australian jurisdictions. Self-determination requires placing full control and decision-making over the well-being and safety of our children into our hands. Our systems have evolved over 65,000 years and are guided by strict obligations and cultural protocol, and laws. As such, they provide the strong foundation needed for the care and protection of our children. This paper uses a First Nations, rights-based analysis of literature to interrogate the historical foundations and ongoing impact of Australia’s child protection systems on First Nations children and families. It then centres First Nations systems of knowledge and practice as the foundation for a call to replace our current child protection systems with a First Nations Child Safety and Wellbeing system.

ABSTRACTChild protection systems in Australia have been criticised for racialized policies that result in the over‐policing of First Nations families and the removal of First Nations children. Under current colonial structures, “protection from harm” is used to justify the removal of First Nations children from community—sometimes permanently—at the expense of culture under the justification of timely decision making to achieve “permanency.” This is inconsistent with First Nations worldviews and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It also contributes to the sustained and increasing over‐representation of First Nations children in child protection and Out‐of‐Home Care (OOHC) systems in all Australian states and territories. Drawing on interviews with 32 First Nations and 5 non‐indigenous people in the state of New South Wales, Australia, this paper explores participants' perceptions of the purpose of placements in statutory OOHC for First Nations children. The findings highlight issues at the systemic, policy and practice levels that result in permanency being equated with disconnection from family and culture, at the expense of restoration. A lack of consultation with community and an inability to participate in decision‐making has led to the continuation of colonial policies that prioritise safety through removal and disconnection. We discuss how these policy changes neglect community advice, and entrench the view that “permanency” is best achieved via permanent care away from family and community. We conclude by discussing the importance of genuine self‐determination for the wellbeing of First Nations children, families, and culture.

• Being raised by and within ones' First Nations community, among one's mob and fully immersed in culture, is a fundamental part of the First Nations being. • Shifting towards systemic transformation through increased First Nations self-determination and control of OOHC systems and placements. • The Minintitja Care Model is an example of the power and promise that First Nations self-determination holds to deliever improved outcomes and accountability. • A Funddamental redesigning of OOHC services are delivered to First Nations children in Australia by drawing on First NAtions knowledges, traditions and values. Being raised by and within ones’ First Nations community, among one’s mob and fully immersed in culture, is a fundamental part of First Nations being. This is an aspect of First Nations being that has been disrupted through colonial practices targeting First Nations families, such as the Stolen Generations where 10–30% of all First Nations children were forcibly removed from their families in the twentieth century. It also continues in the contemporary through statutory child removals in Australia, where the continued overrepresentation of First Nations children in Australian child protection and OOHC systems has resulted in community concerns of another Stolen Generations. Shifting towards systemic transformation through increased First Nations self-determination and control of OOHC systems, this article describes an innovative model of kinship care, the ‘Minintitja Care Model’, that one First Nations community designed and delivered in rural New South Wales, Australia. The Minintitja Care Model is an example of the power and promise that First Nations self-determination holds to deliver improved outcomes for First Nations children in OOHC in Australia. We argue that it evidences the importance of fundamentally redesigning how OOHC services are delivered to First Nations children in Australia by drawing on First Nations knowledge, tradition and value. Yet redesigning a system that was not built for the benefit of First Nations children and families requires more than reform: it requires the bravery to envision new possibilities by drawing on ancient wisdom. This, we contend, is aligned with the tenets of abolition, as applied from a First Nations standpoint.

Results of a training course for social workers on engaging fathers in child protection

This scoping review systematically maps the existing evidence base on child protection initiatives and interventions in the Philippines. Recognizing the critical importance of safeguarding children from all forms of abuse, neglect, exploitation, and violence, this study aims to identify, characterize, and synthesize the available literature on child protection policies, programs, and their implementation within the Philippine context. Utilizing a comprehensive search strategy across multiple databases, the review examines diverse types of evidence, including research studies, policy analyses, and program evaluations. Key areas of focus include the effectiveness of intervention programs for children-in-conflict with the law (CICL) and child abuse survivors, the implementation of child protection policies in schools and local communities, and the awareness and responsiveness of various stakeholders. The findings reveal a growing body of localized evidence, highlighting both strengths in policy frameworks and persistent challenges in their consistent and effective implementation. This review identifies significant gaps in the evidence base, particularly concerning rigorous impact evaluations and the generalizability of findings, underscoring the urgent need for more robust, evidence-informed research to strengthen child protection systems across the archipelago.

Recurrent child protection post-investigation services for First Nations children in the province of Quebec

This paper examines the responses of state and third sector agencies to the emergence of child abuse in sport since the mid-1980s. As with other social institutions such as the church, health and education, sport has both initiated its own child protection interventions and also responded to wider social and political influences. Sport has exemplified many of the changes identified in the brief for this special issue, such as the widening of definitional focus, increasing geographic scope and broadening of concerns to encompass health and welfare. The child protection agenda in sport was initially driven by sexual abuse scandals and has since embraced a range of additional harms to children, such as physical and psychological abuse, neglect and damaging hazing (initiation) rituals. Whereas in the 1990s, only a few sport organisations acknowledged or addressed child abuse and protection (notably, UK, Canada and Australia), there has since been rapid growth in interest in the issue internationally, with many agencies now taking an active role in prevention work. These agencies adopt different foci related to their overall mission and may be characterised broadly as sport-specific (focussing on abuse prevention in sport), children’s rights organisations (focussing on child protection around sport events) and humanitarian organisations (focussing on child development and protection through sport). This article examines how these differences in organisational focus lead to very different child protection approaches and “solutions”. It critiques the scientific approaches used thus far to inform activism and policy changes and ends by considering future challenges for athlete safeguarding and welfare.

The overrepresentation of First Nations children and families involved with child welfare: Findings from the Ontario incidence study of reported child abuse and neglect 2013.

Major permanency planning-based reforms transformed the New South Wales (NSW) out-of-home care (care) system between 2012 and 2022, in the face of strong, sustained opposition from First Peoples. Permanency, attachment and related notions, including the best interests of the child are all constructs central to permanency planning and crucial factors in judicial decision-making about children’s permanent care arrangements. Doctoral research conducted by the author, a Wiradjuri legal scholar, explored Aboriginal community member understandings of these concepts. With a focus on restoration, this article provides a critical commentary on aspects of the legislative changes implemented in NSW. Outlining literature relating to the reforms, the author notes the substantial lack of evidence from First Nations’ perspectives in support of the legislative changes made. Implications for both First Peoples and for social work are discussed. The article seeks to prompt reflection by social workers on how such evidence vacuums can cause harm to First Nations children and young people in statutory care. Social work spheres within child welfare and associated scholarship must centre First Peoples’ knowledge and experiences. If not, crucial conceptual and practice-related issues will remain poorly understood and profound child welfare system-related trauma caused to First Nations children and families will be perpetuated. IMPLICATIONS System reform relating to permanent care arrangements of First Nations children and young people must be grounded in First Nations-led evidence, including on permanency and attachment, and it must centre First Peoples’ perspectives and lived experience. Understanding and taking into account the perspectives of First Peoples is an important action social workers and other practitioners from non-Indigenous backgrounds must take in supporting First Nations children and families involved in care matters. Hence, there is a need for critical reflection in the social work sphere, about how child protection policies and legislation may benefit, or create harm to, First Nations communities. Advocacy for systems change is an important action social workers can take, when governments propose policies that First Peoples view as detrimental to support the long-term wellbeing of First Nations children.

I conducted a longitudinal ethnographic PhD study between June 2009 and June 2012 to examine how intervention practices took place in 30 Dutch and Dutch-Curacaoan single-mother families with multiple problems, because interventions were often regarded as ineffective in 'multi-problem families'. Drawing on this study, this article aims to demonstrate that cultural assumptions, along lines of, among other things, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic class, play a major role in family care and child protection intervention processes in the Netherlands. I will provide different examples of both social work text and talk to illustrate underlying categorical presumptions. It will be seen how the culturally embedded social policy category ‘multi-problem family’ plays a role in Dutch social work policy and practice. I will then demonstrate how important cultural notions are (made) in social work encounters between the mothers and the institutional representatives in question through giving an insight into how cultural beliefs are mobilized in encounters. I argue that one should be more aware of how (essentialist) cultural notions are mobilized in child welfare and protection intervention processes in order to bridge the gap between the life worlds of the mothers and the professionals, as disconnection appears to lie at the core of why family care and child protection intervention practices are often flawed.

As in other European countries, the Swiss child protection system has gone through substantial changes in the course of the 20th century up to today. Increasingly, the needs as well as the participation of children and parents affected by child protection interventions have become a central concern. In Switzerland, critical debates around care-related detention of children and adults until 1981 have led to the launch of the National Research Program ‘Welfare and Coercion—Past, Present and Future’ (NRP 76), with the aim of understanding past and current welfare practices. This paper is based on our research project, which is part of this national program. We first discuss three overarching concepts—integrity, autonomy and participation—at the heart of a theoretical framework in order to understand the position of parents and children in child protection proceedings. Secondly, we critically analyze the historical and legal development of the child protection system in Switzerland and its effects on children and parents from 1912 until today. Thirdly, we give an insight into the current Swiss child protection system, with an investigation of hearings of parents and children conducted by the Child and Adult Protection Authorities (CAPA) based on participant observations. In particular, we show the importance of information exchanges and of signs of mutual recognition. Finally, in light of our findings, we discuss the interplay between socio-historical and legal developments in child protection and their consequences for the integrity, autonomy and participation of the people involved.

Background: In Sri Lanka, child protection is a fundamental responsibility of the government, involving multiple agencies such as the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA), the Department of Probation and Child Care Services, and law enforcement. The aim is to explore challenges faced by institutions in child protection interventions, for example, bureaucratic inertia, failure in coordination, duplication of roles, and policy vacuums. Case study: This study examined a case of a six-year-old girl who was abused under legal guardianship, separation from her mother, living with a mentally challenged father, and cruelty by the class teacher. The data drawn from case management and legal files. supplemented by data obtained from principal officers via interviews, with the application of content analysis to unveil themes pertaining to institutional responses, intervention effectiveness, and systemic obstacles. The results mirror both weaknesses and strengths in Sri Lanka's child protection system. Although some measures proved effective in securing children's immediate safety, difficulties such as coordination problems between agencies, unclear role definitions, procedural delays, and policy implementation shortcomings detracted from the overall effectiveness of protection work. Systemic weaknesses and institutional inefficiencies were the reasons for delays in safeguarding children's best interests, and the necessity for improved service delivery and better interagency working is highlighted. Conclusion: The case study emphasized the lack of coordinated response that is needed for a complex case of this nature. Inter-agency coordination, policy framework improvement, a child-centered approach, and institutional professionalism are required to improve intervention effectiveness.

This study is based on data collected from community development facilitators using open-ended questionnaires and group discussions. Four general types of cultural practices were identified by interviewees as posing risks to children and challenges to child protection work: marriage practices, rites of passage or rituals, family secrets and religious or spiritual practices. The major implication of the findings is that an understanding of cultural practices is essential for the success of child protection responses in communities, especially with regard to child protection advocacy work that focuses upon harmful cultural practices. Community child protection interventions should also include an intentional focus upon children who are especially vulnerable or isolated due to some harmful cultural practices. However, as cultural issues are sensitive, child protection responses should be built upon positive aspects of people's cultural practices, which can then become entry points for engaging with other cultural practices that may be harmful to children. Community development facilitators also need to be trained to deal with those difficult cultural issues they face when working in communities. Because of the cultural dynamics to child protection issues, existing child protection interventions or responses need to be contextualized to various cultural environments of children. Also, child protection interventions need to take a long-term view, as they involve dealing with sensitive cultural issues that are an integral part of community life and are difficult to change.

This chapter introduces the concept of national human rights institutions for children to provide the international and theoretical context for the analysis of the Irish Ombudsman for Children that follows. It outlines the relevant international standards, including the Paris Principles on NHRIs, as well as the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment No. 2 on the role of independent national human rights institutions in the promotion and protection of children’s rights. The chapter makes the case for a distinct form of NHRI for the protection and promotion of children’s rights and considers the emergence of such institutions around the world, considering their diverse form and approach. The chapter explains the unique role played by the national children’s rights institution as a distinct body, with key lessons as to the features of such bodies that are instrumental for effective promotion and protection of children’s rights at a national level.