First Nations Voices in Child Protection Decision Making: Changing the Frame

We consider here the potentialities of drawing on the cultural strengths and resilience of Australian’s First Nations families for their engagement with child protection (CP) and healthcare services. We disentangle the underlying historical and systemic failures driving the crisis of Australia’s First Nations children coming into CP in disproportionate numbers. This is a difficult, complex, and evolving area of reform with scant empirical evidence—questions abound more than solutions. Our core message is this: a public health approach to CP requires better logical frameworks informed by more research and evaluation, driven by the cultural strengths of First Nations Australians. We outline key reforms through an intersectional approach between the healthcare and CP systems, and between cultural competence and cultural safety, using an inter-professional communication tool. We argue that deficit thinking toward First Nations peoples is embedded within culturally dangerous dominant discourses. Contemporary reforms have failed to redress this. Monocultural institutions including healthcare and CP services must address racism—“cultural safety” needs to underpin policy and practice. Crucially, we assert that power rests in the hands of First Nations peoples to determine if the care provided to their communities is culturally safe. Governance, policy, and practice must authentically embrace culturally safe practices, confronting deeply held social norms, biases, and assumptions. Organizational processes, culture, and relationships are core components in culturally safe environments and we outline a number of research and workforce development strategies. Fundamental are strength-based approaches to empower First Nations people’s self-determination, control, and collaboration in systemic changes.

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.

Parents with intellectual disabilities in the child protection system

Child protection is a sensitive aspect of the social welfare systems across the globe as more children get exposed to abuse, neglect, trafficking, exploitation and other vulnerable factors that threaten their growth and well-being. This paper analyzes child protection and welfare systems in Nigeria with special reference to the application of social-work intervention. Using policy reports, legislative frameworks, government reports and academic literature, the paper discusses the institutional frameworks, legal provisions that influences child-protection mechanisms in Nigeria. The analysis is based on three issues: child-protection policies and law that govern child-welfare in Nigeria; the functions and roles of social workers in the systems; gaps and challenges that impact the effectiveness of child-protection interventions. The study, which is based on the Systems Theory, conceptualizes child protection as a network of interrelating institutions, such as welfare agencies, legal systems, health care services, schools, and community systems, which act in unison to protect children against harm. The evidence shows that Nigeria has come up with a number of legislative and policy frameworks, such as the Child Rights Act that have been established to help prevent abuse, exploitation and neglect of children. The adoption of these frameworks, however, is inconsistent because of the poor institutional capacity, lack of sufficient funding and inter-agency co-ordination, as well as lack of professionalization of social-work practice. The discussion also establishes that social workers are very significant as direct service providers, advocates of protective services, and coordinators of these services by performing various functions like case management, family support, counselling, rehabilitation, and community-based interventions. This research recommends that Nigeria needs to enhance its child-protection system by strengthening legal enforcement, better professional capability of its social workers, better institutional coordination and community based support system to protect and provide comprehensive welfare to vulnerable children.

Letter to the editor

This study fills existing knowledge gaps by examining the links between Child Protection System (CPS) notifications and Criminal Justice System (CJS) contacts into young adulthood, with consideration of both lifetime Mental Health (MH) system contacts and the characteristics of CPS contacts (including Out-Of-Home Care [OOHC]). We utilised state-wide longitudinal linked administrative data for all individuals registered as born in Queensland, Australia in 1990 ( N = 45,153; 48.6% female). Data include all CPS notifications (including maltreatment types) and periods of OOHC (0–17 years, inclusive), all official offending contacts from age 10 to 24 years (police cautions, proven offences in court, detention/incarceration), and MH contacts between ages 4/5 to 23/24 years. Findings extend understanding of the complexity of CPS–CJS links. While many CPS-involved individuals remain free of CJS involvement, findings elucidate especially high-risk features of child maltreatment experiences, namely adolescent and persistent maltreatment, neglect, OOHC experienced ≥10 years of age, and comorbid CPS and MH contact. Though the CPS–CJS link was especially pronounced for youth offending, increased risk for adult-onset offending was also evident. Results support cross-sector holistic care for maltreated individuals, trauma-informed responses within detention and correctional practices, and increased intervention and support for adolescents in OOHC. These results provide a reminder that intervention should occur early in a problematic pathway, and not simply early in a life course.

BackgroundIndividuals with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) are at risk of having adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), especially those with child protection and/or justice system involvement. The complex relationship between FASD and psychosocial vulnerabilities in the affected individual is an important clinical risk factor for comorbidity. This study (1) explored the ACEs and associated stressors in individuals with FASD; (2) investigated the association between ACEs and negative outcomes, i.e., justice/child protection system involvement; and (3) examined the relationship between ACEs and comorbid conditions such as mood and neurodevelopmental disorders.MethodsData were collected retrospectively via file review from diagnostic clinics in Western Australia. Life adversity was coded using a standardised ACEs questionnaire. A total of 211 participants (72% males) with FASD with a mean age of 11 years (range = 2–21) were included in the final sample. 70% of the total sample had been involved with the child protection system and 40% had trouble with the law.ResultsExposure to drinking/substance misuse at home (70%) and domestic violence (52%) were the two most common ACEs across the total sample. In the entire cohort, 39% had four or more ACEs, indicating higher risks of poor health outcomes. Additional stressors recorded were disengagement from school (43%), transiency (19%), victims of bullying (12%), traumatic brain injury (9%) and homelessness (5%). ACEs such as drinking/substance misuse at home, emotional neglect and physical neglect were positively associated with child protection system involvement. Additionally, exposure to domestic violence was positively correlated with justice system involvement. Higher rates of life adversity in this clinical population were associated with an increased number of comorbidities. Specifically, those with FASD who had comorbidities such as attachment disorder, substance use disorder, and PTSD also reported higher ACEs scores.ConclusionACEs were common in this clinical population. Increased ACEs in this sample were associated with increased comorbidities and involvement with the child protection and/or justice system. This highlights that prevention, intervention and early diagnosis of FASD are important for at risk children to reduce the negative effects of ACEs.

Supervisory neglect: Critical questions regarding child supervision and protection system responses

Mothers in methadone treatment and their involvement with the child protection system: A replication and extension study

Trauma is a central theme in child protection. Responding to and preventing traumatic harm to children is a key function of statutory child protection agencies and systems in Australia. Parents who encounter these systems are also known to be a highly traumatised cohort, often experiencing trauma throughout their own early development and into their adult lives. Despite these being broadly accepted principles amongst practitioners, there are limited pathways for parents to undertake trauma‐processing therapy as an integrated part of current child protection practice. Narrative exposure therapy (NET) is a manualised therapy model that has been used successfully to support individuals with life‐threatening trauma to process these experiences and take agency over their lives. The successful use of this model by non‐traditional therapists such as community health workers, in brief timeframes, has made it a valuable approach in settings with a high need for therapeutic support and low resources, such as refugee accommodation. Although these themes also have synergy with the child protection setting, there is relatively little research on the use of NET in this setting. This paper is written by practitioners and for practitioners and examines the real‐world application of NET with parents involved with a non‐statutory reunification service in the South Australian child protection system, grounded in a trauma‐informed model of practice. As such, the paper considers extending the possible value of NET into an area of limited previous use. The paper highlights observational findings suggesting that NET has the potential to be an effective tool for bringing focus to the trauma experiences of the parent, so that they may process these and develop greater capacity to parent safely as well as engage more productively with the demands of the child protection system.

There is now convincing evidence that childhood maltreatment is associated with youth offending; however, relatively little is known about the characteristics and needs of those who are involved in both the child protection and youth justice systems, and the extent to which these might differ according to level of child protection involvement. This study reports the characteristics and needs of 2,045 young people who were under supervision in secure custody or detention in South Australia between 1995 and 2012 according to the level of exposure to the child protection system in an Australian jurisdiction. Five groups of young offenders were compared: (a) no known child protection notifications or substantiated experience of abuse and/or neglect, (b) notifications only, (c) substantiated notifications, (d) notifications or substantiations and subsequent placement in out-of-home care (OHC), and (e) placement in OHC only. The results indicate that young people who have a history of child protection system involvement have significantly greater and more complex needs than those who have no child protection experience. It is concluded that different service responses may be required to meet the diverse needs of these groups of young people under youth justice supervision.

Engagement in child protective services: Parent perceptions of worker skills

Bullying vs. school violence: A response to Williams and Stelko-Pereira (2013)

ABSTRACTChild protection and welfare systems are entrusted with significant power by governments and are therefore a significant focus of monitoring activities. Monitoring can help to build a better child protection system and to ensure child safety; track policy and legislative implementation and resource allocation; contribute to preventing systemic ‘failures’; provide data for system, policy, and legislative reforms; and support continuous improvement. The Irish system is worth examining for three reasons. First, Ireland has had a single state‐provided child protection and welfare service called the Child and Family Agency. Second, the system has been through a sustained period of development. Third, Ireland has one dedicated statutory authority called the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA). This article provides a case study of the strategies and mechanisms adopted by Ireland to monitor the operation, quality and development of its child protection and welfare system. We will show that there is significant direct and indirect monitoring and focus on child protection from regulators, civil society organisations, government agencies and committees and independent actors. Such monitoring has significantly influenced the development of policy, practice and the development of the child protection system in Ireland.

This chapter outlines Ecuador’s child protection systems. Ecuador’s signing of the Convention of the Rights of the Child in 1989 was the result of a long struggle to institutionalize and legislate children’s rights in the country. There have been important improvements in terms of the availability of a comprehensive public child protection system. However, ongoing political, economic, institutional, and legislative upheaval in the country poses difficulties to the implementation of the rights of children. As such, this chapter explores difficulties in the implementation of the National Decentralized Comprehensive Child Protection System. In particular, it highlights how Ecuador is suffering from deep structural socio-economic, regional, ethnic, and gender inequality.