2024: The FAR, Federal Acquisition Regulations, Part 30
Family Matters: Addressing the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care
1.
2. What is Family Matters?
OUR VISION:
All Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and
young people grow up safely in their home, receive a
good education, and grow up healthy and proud of who
they are
3. OUR GOAL:
To eliminate the over-representation of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care
within a generation.
4. Our Strengths
• Our children have grown up safe, well and cared for in their
families, communities and cultural traditions, for thousands of
years
• Almost 95% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
are cared for in their families of origin
• Of the 5% who in alternative care, over half are cared for by
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers
• The strengths to redress child wellbeing and safety concerns
lie within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
5. The Challenges
• Since the Bringing them Home report was released in 1997
the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in
out-of-home care has increased dramatically from 2,785 in
1997 to 14,991 in 2013-14, a rise of almost 440 per cent in 16
years.
• Our children make up nearly 35% of all children in out of
home care in Australia, despite representing only 5.5% of the
population and are over 9 times more likely to be in out-of-
home care than their non-Indigenous peers.
6. Comparison of Government Expenditure on Child Protection / Out-of-
Home Care and Early Intervention/Intensive Family Support 2013-2014
Child Protection and
Out-of-Home care
3.32 billion
Early Intervention
and Intensive Family
Support
678 million
National expenditure 2013-14
7. Strengths Based Early Intervention
Addressing over-representation requires strengths-based
approaches that enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples to lead redress of the issues impacting their children,
and to provide love and care for their children in their own
cultural ways. Such approaches would reflect an holistic
application of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child
Placement Principle.
8. Strengths Based Early Intervention
Addressing over-representation requires an investment, by
government, led and delivered by community, in interventions
that support, heal and strengthen families early in the life cycle
and as early as possible when issues that impact family
functioning emerge.
10. What Works? Priorities for Change
• Strengthening Families
• Participation
• Healing
• Accountability
11. The Vision Going Forward
• Secure national commitment
• Support strategic state/territory based strategies
• Build Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-
Indigenous community capacity
• Establish a monitoring and reporting framework
12. For more information…
Website: http://www.familymatters.org.au/
Like us on Facebook:
Family Matters: Kids safe in culture not in care.
www.facebook.com/familymatterskidssafeinculturenotincare
Email:
Emma: Emma.sydenham@snaicc.org.au
John: john.burton@snaicc.org.au or
Fleur: fleur.smith@snaicc.org.au
Editor's Notes
Introduction
Acknowledgement of country
Introduce self and role in SNAICC and QATSICPP
SNAICC is the national peak body representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families. We are governed by a National Executive made up of the leaders of community-controlled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child and family welfare and early childhood services across the country. A major reason why SNAICC formed over 30 years ago was to respond to the racism embedded in child protection systems that caused the tragedy of the Stolen Generations. Thirty years on SNAICC remains outraged by the discrimination still embedded in the system - by how many of our little ones come into contact with child protection systems around Australia, and how many are removed from their families and cultures. We are devastated by the lack of supports to strengthen and empower our families to care well for their little ones.
The Family Matters initiative commenced in June 2013 as a response to these continuing and increasing concerns about the failure of child and family welfare service systems across Australia to provide for the safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Family Matters is coordinated by a committed group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous organisations, led by SNAICC, and supported by a broad base of highly regarded state and national peak bodies and non-government organisations. The initiative aims to turn the tide on the continuing systematic removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from family and community in order to enable a new paradigm in cultural and community caring.
The Family Matters vision is one that I think we can and should all agree is a vital priority for our nation, and our next generations:
(MOUSE CLICK)
All Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people grow up safely in their home, receive a good education, and grow up healthy and proud of who they are
The core goal of Family Matters is to… (MOUSE CLICK) eliminate the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care within a generation. It is an ambitious goal – but it is a goal that we should work on relentlessly. It is a goal that is critical to the future of our families and communities. It is a goal that goes to the heart of the healing journey of a nation that has not recovered from, that can’t simply sweep away, the injustices of its past that remain unaddressed.
If Family Matters is to succeed in this goal, it will require the joint and concerted efforts of governments, and civil society – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – to support, intervene early, and prevent future harm for our children and their families.
Family Matters aimed to get around to as many jurisdictions as possible to raise awareness of the issue, to develop state based strategies and to inform a national strategy on reducing over representation. To date, Family Matters forums have been held in Darwin, Alice Springs, Perth, Fitzroy Crossing, Adelaide and Port Augusta. We have drawn on the rich discussions at these meetings and a review of the literature to develop draft priorities for change, some of which I will share with you today.
But before I move to the challenges and the responses needed, I want to start by talking about the strengths of our communities.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have grown up safe, well and cared for in their families, communities and cultural traditions, for thousands of years. Despite a deficit focus pervasive in media and policy debates on child welfare, safe cultural care remains the dominant reality in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies.
Today, almost 95% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are cared for in their families of origin. Of the other 5% who are in alternative care, over half are cared for by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are shouldering the greater burden of care within Australia’s child protection systems, despite experiencing higher levels of social and economic hardship.
The evidence is clear that the strengths to redress child wellbeing and safety concerns lie within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Research describes the value of unique Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child rearing practices, alongside the critical importance of continuity of cultural identity to the wellbeing of Indigenous children.
In many places around the country our organisations are already strong, already meeting the challenges, and ready to lead efforts to strengthen our families to care – if we can adopt the right policies and create the supportive environment for them to do so.
We also can’t shy away from acknowledging the enormity and devastating impacts of what is happening. The facts suggest that there is no room for being complacent or continuing with ‘business as usual’.
Since the Bringing them Home report was released in 1997 the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care has increased dramatically from 2,785 in 1997 to 14,991 in 2013-14, a rise of almost 440 per cent in 16 years. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children make up nearly 35% of all children in out of home care in Australia, despite representing only 5.5% of the population and are over 9 times more likely to be in out-of-home care than their non-Indigenous peers.
There is overwhelming evidence of two abject failures in the response to this escalating crisis.
First, there has been a failure to intervene early to support, strengthen and heal families and communities.
Second, there has been a failure to enable a genuine space for self-determination – a platform in policy, legislation and resourcing that provides communities with opportunities for empowerment to draw on their strengths and lead responses to the issues facing their children and families.
Despite policy frameworks that espouse an early intervention focus to address negative impacts for children within Australia’s over-burdened child protection systems, expenditure on early intervention and intensive family support remains just 17% of the $3.44 billion national child and family welfare investment.
What is strengths based early intervention? (Slide 1 of 2)
Available evidence firmly indicates that building on the strengths of families and communities with the objective to support their continuing safe care of their own children offers the best prospect to secure children’s long-term wellbeing. This is true for all children. The specific importance to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander strengths to care has been captured by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle. When the Bringing them Home Report recognised the racist underpinnings and tragic consequences of the Stolen Generations, one of its core recommendations was the implementation of a principle that prioritises safe connection to family and culture for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Though somewhat misleading in its focus on ‘placement’ in out-of-home care, the Principle was designed with the intention of a more holistic response to strengthening families and communities to care, while actively maintaining cultural connections for children needing to be removed to out-of-home care.
Affirming the evidence base for the Principle, research describes:
the cultural strengths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child rearing practices that contribute to create safe and nurturing environments for children;
the critical importance of continuity of cultural identity to the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children;
that better outcomes that can be achieved through Indigenous-led and managed service design and delivery; and
the importance of cultural knowledge to inform decision-making that is attuned to the needs, strengths and risks to care for children in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Therefore (CLICK MOUSE FOR PRINCIPLE STATEMENT TO APPEAR)
What is strengths based early intervention? (SLIDE 2 OF 2)
The term ‘early intervention’, as it relates to child welfare, is recognised in the literature as having a dual meaning referring both to interventions early in the life of issues that may lead to child neglect and abuse, and also to interventions targeted early in the life cycle. It encompasses both the active prevention of the development of future problems, and also the proactive promotion of the necessary conditions for a child’s healthy development. These foci reflect a firm base of evidence that care and environmental factors early in life have crucial impacts on later health and wellbeing outcomes, and that interventions will be more effective the earlier that they are applied to address family issues that may otherwise worsen, compound, and increase the risk of harm to children over time. Early investment in strengthening families has been found to provide long-term social and economic benefits by interrupting trajectories that lead to health problems, criminalisation, and child protection intervention.
Therefore (CLICK MOUSE FOR PRINCIPLE STATEMENT TO APPEAR)
A model for strengths based early intervention
The Family Matters evidence based review has developed the model pictured on the slide for strengths-based early intervention for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. It reflects the inter-connectedness of social services and community supports that do, or have the potential to, provide holistic responses to child and family needs. The four quadrants of the circle describe critical stages of connection to the formal service system for enabling child safety and wellbeing, while the centre arrow describes strengths-based drivers of an effective system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.
There is a huge amount of activity and concepts represented in this model – and I won’t have the time to take you through all of it today – we’ll be circulating the full Family Matters Evidence Base Review in the coming weeks for consultation and development – so please let me or SNAICC know if you want more information and a copy of the draft document to review.
What I will bring your attention to today is that centre arrow, which is BIG for a reason – because it represents the evidence of how a system for early intervention needs to be adapted if it is to respond to the needs of and achieve better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge and participation
Participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in decision that affect them is a core human right, and recognised as critical to decision-making that is appraised of the best interests of children from a cultural perspective. Child protection decision-making is a critical field for Indigenous engagement in decision-making given its disproportionate impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who are over-represented in the system and experience intergenerational impacts of past forced removals.
Working towards cultural competence
The evidence is clear that access to services and effective support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families is supported by service provision that understands and is adapted to their unique cultural practices and needs. There is also evidence that this is best achieved through services delivered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations. It is critical that mainstream services develop their capacity to provide appropriate support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families – but this needs to happen through genuine and respectful relationships with our communities and should never act to displace the role of our own organisations.
Trauma-informed healing
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and whole communities experience trauma that derives from the negative impacts of colonisation, forced child removal, and ongoing discrimination. A trauma-informed approach to protecting children needs to be attuned to the source and impact of trauma experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and requires family and community healing to interrupt cycles of inter-generational harm.
Service integration initiatives
Service integration aims to improve service access for families through coordination that makes the service system easier to navigate and positions services to identify families’ needs and connect them with the right supports at the right time. Integration efforts are particularly critical to address access issues for families experiencing vulnerability who are often least equipped to navigate a complex web of service supports. Interventions for vulnerable families are also recognised to be more effective where they target the holistic range of issues affecting families, addressing the root causes of concerns for children. Intersecting with the literature on Indigenous participation, integration initiatives are a key site for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership to ensure the design and delivery of a range of responses tailored to community needs.
The evidence of what works – priorities for change
Family Matters has drawn on the literature and consultations to identify four policy shifts that we believe would, if implemented, significantly reduce the interaction of our children with the child protection system. They would improve the safety and wellbeing of our children.
(MOUSE CLICK) Strengthening Families: Increasing support for our families and communities to stay together – including targeted and intensive support for our vulnerable families, and leadership for our organisations in the design and delivery of integrated child and family services.
Examples: In Queensland the Stronger Families Reform Program has included an important focus on developing a new integrated model of child and family welfare service delivery led by our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations – QATSICPP has also been resourced to participate in co-design of the model (elaborate?). Also, in Queensland the state government has led the way through investing $10mil per year over four years to support its Aboriginal Child and Family Centres providing integrated supports to families in the early years.
(MOUSE CLICK) Participation: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in decision-making for the care and protection of our children – including family and kin participation, building the role of our organisations to make decisions for children and deliver the services that support them.
Examples: A pilot of Aboriginal Guardianship by an Aboriginal Agency in Victoria has saw 46% of the Aboriginal children involved in the program safely returned to their parents or families over a 12 month period – delegating responsibility for Aboriginal children to Aboriginal agencies provides a clear pathway to supporting their safe care within family and culture. Trials of Aboriginal Family-Led Decision Making in NSW and QLD, drawing on the Victorian model, have the potential to empower families to make decisions for the safe care of their own children – success will depend on Aboriginal leadership in design and implementation and ensuring families can meet and plan for their children’s safe care as early as possible.
(MOUSE CLICK) Healing: Addressing the deep trauma experienced by many of our communities and families and creating the opportunity for healing – including through providing resources and support for our communities to develop our own healing approaches.
Example: The work of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation to support the design, implementation and evaluation of healing programs with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities provides a significant scope of emerging practice and knowledge to draw on in efforts to advance this priority.
(MOUSE CLICK) Accountability: Making Australia’s child protection and family support systems accountable to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander priorities – including oversight roles for our people and organisations to ensure critical policy measures like the Child Placement Principle are implemented.
Example: the promising initiative of the Aboriginal Children’s Commissioner in Victoria who has reviewed the cases of all Aboriginal children in care in Victoria, and reviewed the application of the Child Placement Principle to drive priorities for reform that can improve outcomes for Aboriginal children.
The vision going ahead
Family Matters will continue to advocate for these and other important priorities to address the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Australia’s child protection systems. Family Matters will adopt a variety of strategies to promote change in policy and practice. Specifically, Family Matters will seek to:
(MOUSE CLICK) Secure national commitment to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child safety and to prioritise early intervention through Coalition of Australian Government (COAG) targets;
(MOUSE CLICK) Support strategic state/territory based strategies that create precedents or embed innovation in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child safety law, policy and practice;
(MOUSE CLICK) Build Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous community capacity to mobilise to reduce child removal in their communities; and
(MOUSE CLICK) Establish a monitoring and reporting framework to measure and highlight government progress on key policy imperatives to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child safety and reduce child removal.
To succeed in achieving its goals Family Matters requires the support of all Australian governments, civil society organisations, service providers and the broader Australian community. I invite you to join us in efforts to urgently address the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in child protection systems by taking an active role to promote the Family Matters objectives, and by visiting the Family Matters website for more information. It won’t be easy, but if we work together and support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership in a process of change, I believe we can eliminate the over-representation of our children in a generation and improve the lives of generations of children to come.
FACILITATOR: GARRY
Thank you all so much for joining us
… please feel free to follow up with any of us after this session.
