What kind of actions might a national framework include?

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Better use of early intervention family support services to support child protection

The Government is examining its existing investment in parenting and family support early intervention and prevention programs to align it to systematically support goals of preventing child abuse and neglect and enhancing wellbeing. These programs should build upon, not replicate, existing service platforms, like maternal and child health services, preschools or child care centres, and schools.

This work will incorporate consideration of how such funding should be prioritised, together with a reform strategy to create a more integrated system for Commonwealth and State and Territory family development programs.

Changes to child care assistance could be considered to provide more developmental support for children at risk and respite for parents under stress.

Further consideration could also be given to improving the capacity of services for newly arrived migrants and refugees where there has been a high level of parental trauma, in order to assist them in adjusting to parenting in a new land where child rearing laws and norms may be very different from those in their homelands.

Family Relationship Centres may be able to provide a wider range of services beyond those to separating couples, for example where extended family members are in conflict with parents over contact and other issues.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK TO PROTECT CHILDREN:
Enhancing Centrelink’s role to identify and refer vulnerable families

Options could be considered for building capacity in Centrelink to facilitate early intervention with vulnerable families.

It may be also appropriate to re-examine the Youth Case Management Protocol to ensure that assessments and referrals are working well in the interests of young people.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Targeted action on parenting and alcohol misuse

While there are many programs and projects seeking to address the causes and effects of alcohol misuse, a targeted approach for parents or families in high risk situations may be required to:

• address the effects of alcohol, both on foetal development and on effective parenting, and
• identify alcohol misuse where it occurs and develop approaches to modifying behaviour, through maternal and child health services, and other forms of prenatal interaction.

In recognition of high levels of foetal alcohol spectrum disorders in Indigenous communities and high rates of teenage pregnancies, there could be specific initiatives focussed at Indigenous young people about the dangers of alcohol during pregnancy.

Further collaborative options to target alcohol and substance abuse which puts children in danger could be pursued through the national framework. This could include consideration of alcohol supply and advertising issues.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Promotion of good parenting

In conjunction with other support services, targeted evidence-based campaigns using a public health model could help promote good parenting and prevent families falling into patterns of behaviour which end up requiring tertiary interventions.

Better information strategies could be developed collaboratively at all levels of intervention including when children and families are disclosing abuse.

EXISTING GOVERNMENT MEASURE:
Support for families to protect children online

The NetAlert — Protecting Australian Families Online initiative is part of the Australian Government’s ongoing commitment to providing a safe online environment for all families, especially children. It provides:

• the National Filter Scheme to provide every Australian household and public library with access to a free internet content filter to help block unwanted content; and
• a new website and national helpline to provide advice about protecting children online.

The recently launched Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS) is a software tool to help police better protect children from online abuse. It enables the Australian Federal Police to work with law enforcement agencies throughout Australia and the world, to share and track information relating to online child exploitation and abuse. With this system, police can speed up the process of identifying and arresting offenders.

EXISTING GOVERNMENT MEASURE:
Income management – children at risk of neglect

The Australian Government will give State and Territory child welfare authorities the power to advise Centrelink to manage government payments (such as Newstart, Family Tax Benefit and the Baby Bonus) to ensure that in certain circumstances, parents with children at risk of neglect provide basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter for their children.

The child protection income management measure will be implemented initially in Western Australia (WA) with a staged roll out commencing in the Cannington District and selected locations in the East Kimberley from July 2008 subject to all necessary processes being in place. WA Department for Child Protection will have the capacity to advise Centrelink to quarantine a percentage of income support and family assistance payments. The mechanism is being developed with appropriate parental support services, as well as checks and appeal processes to ensure that people are not unfairly disadvantaged.

Experience in Western Australia will help inform the implementation of similar child protection measures in cooperation with other States and Territories.

EXISTING GOVERNMENT MEASURE:
Income management approach

Northern Territory

The first iteration of income management was rolled out across remote Northern Territory (NT) Indigenous communities from the second half of 2007 in response to concerns arising from the “Little Children are Sacred” report about widespread child abuse and neglect in the NT’s remote Indigenous communities. That report linked the ready availability of large amounts of discretionary government income to the prevalence of anti-social behaviours such as excessive alcohol and pornography use, which contributed to children being unsafe.

In the NT context, income management is applied to all income support recipients within declared communities. Recipients are subject to compulsory quarantining of 50 per cent of their payments, which is then directed towards the provision of essentials, such as food, utilities and education costs for children. Some payments such as advanced payments and baby bonus are fully quarantined.

It is expected that income management will be fully rolled out across the prescribed communities in the NT by July 2008. The Government has committed to reviewing all elements of the NT Emergency response, including income management of communities, commencing in mid 2008.

Cape York welfare reform trials

Welfare reform trials are being implemented in the four Cape York communities of Aurukun, Hope Vale, Mossman Gorge and Coen. The trials aim to restore social norms and local authority and change behaviours in response to chronic levels of welfare dependency, social dysfunction and economic exclusion in certain communities. The Queensland Parliament has passed the Family Responsibilities Commission Act 2008, which establishes the Family Responsibilities Commission (FRC). The FRC is expected to start operation on 1 July 2008. The FRC is an independent statutory body which will support the rebuilding of local social norms and change in behaviours in the trial communities by early intervention and assistance and through attaching reciprocity to welfare payments. The FRC will consist of respected members of each of the four trial communities, such as local elders, and be chaired by a person of senior legal standing.

EXISTING GOVERNMENT MEASURE:
National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and Children

Immediate initiatives under the National Plan include:

• White Ribbon Day education activities in rural and regional communities to promote culture-change around violence against women.
• Respectful Relationship resources for all Australian high schools.
• Tougher and nationally consistent laws and best practice. The Government will work with the States and Territories to toughen and harmonise domestic violence and sexual assault laws.
• Boosting the Australian Institute of Criminology’s National Homicide Monitoring Program to investigate domestic violence-related homicides in order to inform future interventions designed to protect women and children from violence.
• Research into international best practice models for working with perpetrators of violence to make them confront their violence and its impact on their partners and children.

Further options to link initiatives with the national framework for protecting children could be considered. OPTION FOR

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
A national mechanism to plan future work and investments

This option would see a national mechanism established to plan future work and investments across jurisdictions and all parts of the system (primary, secondary and tertiary). Work in this area could:

• identify the steps needed to reduce the over-representation of Indigenous children in the child protection system
• identify gaps in programs to build parenting skills
• identify children currently excluded from universal service provision
• define those groups with the greatest needs and those that would benefit most from early intervention programs
• identify secondary services gaps in meeting needs for those groups, including in the way such programs are targeted and provided, and
• identify priority areas for reform of tertiary service systems, based on issues identified in a national monitoring and audit process.

The work-plan could be developed on an annual or biennial basis, following on the cycle of monitoring and reporting, and using either existing COAG processes, or a stand alone intergovernmental child protection planning group.

Regular monitoring and reporting should feed agreement about future Commonwealth and State/Territory funding priorities for primary and secondary services, and ways forward in re-formulating activity and investments to ensure they match these priorities.

There should also be an emphasis on the utilisation of research in practice with consideration of appropriate mechanisms for knowledge transfer.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
A solution driven national research program

This option would build upon the national systems work identified above by adding an element of national prioritysetting in research relating to the protection and wellbeing of children, and could include:

• developing a nationally agreed national research agenda for early intervention, child abuse and neglect prevention and protection
• collating research and coordinating findings to inform the development of national indicators of wellbeing and service standards
• national sharing and promoting examples of initiatives that work (at each stage of intervention)
• documenting and sharing good practice in working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families and those from other cultural or religious backgrounds
• monitoring links between those subject to abuse and later life pathways
• developing evaluation standards/benchmarks (including common definitions and outcome indicators)
• developing consultation guidelines to govern negotiations between communities, organisations and three layers of government.

The Australian Government could give consideration to the feasibility of conducting an Australian study of the prevalence of child abuse and neglect.

Strong links would be required between this research program and planning at the national and inter-jurisdictional level, to ensure that the research addresses priority gaps in the evidence base, feeds into actions and that investments are informed by the evidence.

The National Child Protection Clearinghouse (NCPC) is currently funded through the Australian Institute of Family Studies to provide research communications, information, and advisory services such as a website, e-discussion list, networking/outreach, help desk, policy advice to policy makers, and publications with a focus on the Australian context.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Providing support for additional child focus in adult specialist services

The broad range of services that currently have contact with families experiencing difficulties are well placed to identify children who may be at risk of abuse and neglect. For example, drug and alcohol services, mental health services, homelessness services, some settlement services and family violence services all treat the adult as the primary client but have significant opportunities for early identification of children’s needs. Currently, they are often inadequately resourced to respond to these needs.

The Australian Government is providing additional funding to tackle the serious levels of violence and increased reporting of child abuse, by providing $1.5 million for extra workers to ensure that vulnerable children’s needs are met. The child support workers will be placed into program areas that traditionally focus on supporting the parents, rather than their accompanying children. Programs that could be approached to incorporate a child support worker to help meet the needs of children may include homelessness services, drug and alcohol services, mental health service providers, etc. The intention is to trial this concept with programs that are considered prime “first to know” agencies.

Some Indigenous stakeholders have identified that secondary services such as parenting, therapeutic counselling and family support services linked to both Indigenous-specific primary services (such as child care) and tertiary services (such as Indigenous-specific child protection and out-of-home care services) are needed to keep Indigenous children safe. While such services exist, ensuring they are systematically available in areas and for families of high need requires extra coordination and planning. Identifying and responding to these service gaps could form a key part of the rolling work-planning process discussed above.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
National standards and monitoring of the out-of-home care system

The development of national standards and monitoring of the out-of-home care system and transition arrangements for children and young people leaving care could help to ensure parity across jurisdictions and consistent levels of safety and wellbeing of all such children and young people.

It is anticipated that this could include standards around the support for children and young people in short term care accommodation; competencies of foster carers; arrangements for case management of both foster carers and children in care; access to oversight and grievance procedures for foster carers and children in care; case review processes; case management arrangements and planning and follow-up support for children leaving care.

This could also include a consistent national approach to arrangements for unsupported young people, to clarify the roles of the Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments.

Given the particular concerns and emerging evidence about particularly poor results for Indigenous children in care, attention could be given to the development of specific national standards for Indigenous children in out-ofhome care. These standards should focus primarily on securing the safety and wellbeing, health and educational development of Indigenous children and the maintenance of family, community and cultural connections for Indigenous children in out-of-home care.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Support for foster carers and informal carers

A strategy to build the capacity, status and performance of foster care nationally could be developed. It could include consideration of case management support, financial and other incentives and disincentives to providing and continuing high quality foster care, as well as consideration of options for improved financial support and access to services such as child care for grandparents, relatives and other people providing informal care to at-risk children.

This could also consider the implications of participation requirements of welfare to work initiatives on the availability of carers.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Improved assistance for young people leaving care

Support for young people as they move out of care and from childhood to adulthood needs to reflect the complex issues confronting them. Particular support is needed when young care leavers themselves become parents. Options include clearer pathways to further education and training, and more sustained individual support to prevent homelessness, early pregnancy or substance abuse. Consideration could be given to the enhancement of the Transition to Independent Living Allowance (TILA).

There has been particular discussion of the skills needed to manage the transition to independence appropriately for Indigenous children, and there could be specific options considered including increased support for foster carers to develop this competency.

EXISTING GOVERNMENT MEASURE:
Targeted investigative measures

The National Indigenous Violence and Child Abuse Intelligence Taskforce (NIITF) was established to tackle violence and child abuse in remote, rural and urban Indigenous Communities. The taskforce is led by the Australian Crime Commission, and is jointly resourced by the Commonwealth and the State and Territoriy Governments, and is:

• improving national coordination in the collection and sharing of relevant information and intelligence;
• enhancing national understanding about the nature and extent of violence and child abuse in Indigenous communities;
• providing related intelligence and other advice, including on organised criminal involvement in drugs, alcohol, pornography and fraud; and
• conducting research on intelligence and information coordination and identification of good practice in the prevention, and detection of, and responses to violence and child abuse in Indigenous communities.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
A common approach to protecting Indigenous children

As part of developing common indicators of child wellbeing, and common national service standards, a specific set of principles and approaches for keeping Indigenous children safe, responding promptly and appropriately to the abuse and neglect of Indigenous children and providing them with stable and culturally strong out-of-home care could be adopted. This does not mean that one size should fit all but that tailored responses are underpinned by clear principles and standards.

This work could link with the wellbeing indicators used in COAG’s Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report, and be used to drive the planning processes discussed above. It could also link with the work of the COAG Working Group on Indigenous Reform, which has a strong focus on early childhood.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
A better service model to protect Indigenous children in towns and cities

An examination of what works specifically to protect Indigenous children could involve a trial over a number of years of a new or extended service model to minimise risk to Indigenous children, that recognises the limited availability of appropriate out-of-home placement options and the desirability of ensuring children remain connected to family and community as far as possible.

Indigenous stakeholders have suggested that child protection systems in each jurisdiction need to be making greater investments in supporting Indigenous-specific services focused on both family support and statutory services, to ensure that at the local level there is a continuum of services and sources of information about individual children and families.

In line with the priorities of the COAG Working Group on Indigenous Reform, the Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments in consultation with the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) and other Indigenous service providers could jointly map service gaps and implement new service models for Indigenous families living in urban and rural areas, embedded within the agreed national and service level standards.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
A better service model to protect Indigenous children in remote communities

Using the findings of the Australian Government’s review of the NTER and the work of the COAG Working Group on Indigenous Reform, an agreed national approach could be developed to tackling child abuse and neglect in remote communities.

The issues to be taken into account in developing the agreed approach could include:

• the greater proportion of children per head of population at risk;
• the lack of local community infrastructure;
• access to and appropriateness of out-of-home care within and outside a child’s community;
• the number of child protection workers in remote areas; and
• innovative approaches to remove the risk from the child, rather than the child from the risk.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
More responsiveness to Indigenous children’s issues within existing services

All jurisdictions and NGOs, as they review both their mainstream and Indigenous-specific programs, could monitor the effectiveness of interventions in improving Indigenous children’s safety, with a view to improving performance.

Responsiveness to the needs of Indigenous children could be a stand alone measure against which all jurisdictions are required to report as part of the national monitoring process. The information gathered via the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) and the Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey (WAACHS) will be critical in making improvements.

Work could also address capacity of Indigenous providers to meet the needs of Indigenous children and families — including consideration of innovative programs to develop emerging models of promising practice.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Supporting compliance with Aboriginal child placement principle

This action would specifically focus on why jurisdictions have varying experiences of implementing this key principle for protecting and ensuring the wellbeing of vulnerable Indigenous children.

It is expected that such a project would highlight gaps in the availability of quality out-of-home care for Indigenous children, and would therefore supplement the work to be undertaken on establishing more appropriate risk minimisation models in Indigenous communities, as discussed earlier.

Consideration could be given to innovative models that combine elements of family-based care with residential care. Interest is growing in international developments in this area. Proposals have been developed that combine a boarding school approach with more intensive support and permanently assigned respite parents.

State to State protocols could be developed to enable Indigenous children to be placed with family interstate when this is in their best interests.

EXISTING GOVERNMENT MEASURE:
Northern Territory Emergency Response review

The Australian Government remains committed to the NTER. Since June 2007, police from the Australian Federal Police, Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria have been seconded to the Northern Territory Police. An additional 32 interstate police officers and 18 NT officers have been deployed to remote communities. From July 2008, interstate support will build to 66 Australian Federal Police officers will live and work in the Northern Territory. New safe houses are being built in 18 remote communities, two existing safe houses are being refitted, two new safe houses are being built in Darwin and Alice Springs, additional child-protection workers are being recruited to establish Mobile Child Protection Teams and extra Aboriginal Family and Community Workers are also being recruited. Alcohol controls and pornography bans have also been put in place.

The Australian Government has commissioned a review to examine how these measures are working and how they can be improved.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
A National Workforce Strategy

A national strategy could address workforce shortages and capacity issues across each part of the system including the government and non-government sectors, with a particular focus on Indigenous specific services. Such a strategy could build on work already undertaken in this area and also in related areas such as the health and child care workforces. It should consider how to restructure the approach as well as the workforce, so the issue does not always focus on numbers of statutory workers.

Creative options around restructuring both the workforce and the protective task itself are required. Key elements could include:

• looking at the way protective and support functions are currently designed and staffed to examine whether roles can be managed differently and enriched;
• promoting the development of appropriate competencies (including cultural competency in managing issues for culturally diverse and Indigenous children) in the training of child protection and welfare workers;
• ongoing professional development, including to manage stress and promote resilience; and
• agreeing on a national program of training for secondary service providers to ensure they are competently and consistently supporting at risk groups.

There are particular issues for recruitment and retention of staff in regional and remote areas including housing and safety. The approach also needs to include training and development for other groups that play a critical role in the lives of children, such as GPs, magistrates and workers in the court system.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Specific Indigenous child protection workforce strategy

Within the overall staffing problem, there is an identified need to increase training places and training supports for child protection workers and child and family support workers to ensure they have expertise in dealing with Indigenous children.

As part of this, jurisdictions could investigate ways to strengthen the child protection training model for Indigenous workers, and link with universities and training institutions.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Identifying indicators of child wellbeing

An agreed set of child wellbeing indicators could tell us how well Australian children are faring across a number of key developmental domains. Such indicators would be able to be used to:

• derive targets to drive action under the child protection framework,
• identify important primary, secondary and tertiary interventions to achieve progress against these targets, and
• provide a measuring stick against which collective progress could be assessed, and performance measured.

Indicators should identify the Indigenous status of children to enable measurement of progress towards reducing the over-representation of Indigenous children in the child protection system.

Substantial work is already being progressed in this area, including by:

• Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY);
• Centre for Community Child Health, Melbourne, which has conducted a project to develop the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) in consultation with the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research;
• Kulunga Research Network at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research with the Centre for Developmental Health (Curtin University), which is developing the Indigenous Australian Early Development Index (I-AEDI); and
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which is currently developing ‘A picture of Australia’s children 2009’. This work will contain a reporting framework and key national indicators for children’s health, development and wellbeing.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
National standards and performance reporting

Work towards common definitions, standards, and performance indicators could build on existing work and should be benchmarked against international best practice to avoid lowest common denominator outcomes.

An independent mechanism could be developed to monitor ongoing performance of child protection systems nationally, analyse results, and report publicly about outcomes and areas requiring further action.

Some proposals for improved national monitoring, reporting and accountability have focused on establishing a national Children’s Commissioner to advocate for children and monitor the performance of services for children and families. Such posts already exist in most State/Territory jurisdictions.

Alternatively, a national reporting function could be established under an arrangement similar to that established by COAG in 2003 on Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage (OID). This regular report on government performance in Indigenous affairs is against a number of key indicators and is a commitment by governments to be accountable for improving outcomes. OID acts as a report card of progress and further action required.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Improving data collection and knowledge sharing

Both the AIHW and the Productivity Commission have drawn attention to the need to continue to work towards more consistent data, information and performance measures for child protection and welfare issues.

Improvements in data collection should be driven by a national debate about roles and consistent standards, and should include specific work to improve understanding of Indigenous child protection issues.

Consideration could also be given to collecting national child protection data in unit record format to improve analysis of how children move through the child protection system and the flexibility of the data for research purposes.

The AIHW is already funded by States and Territories and the Commonwealth to produce annual reports which detail activity across all child protection systems (Child protection Australia). This role could be extended or this work could be undertaken by an entity taking on a monitoring role nationally.

OPTION FOR INCLUSION IN NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN:
Better sharing of police intelligence across jurisdictions

In 2007 COAG agreed in-principle to a framework to improve access to a consistent and expanded range of interjurisdictional criminal history information by child related employment screening schemes to improve the safety and protection of children. This work should be finalised and implemented.

Not all jurisdictions take into account the child abuse record of individuals, so substantiated cases of abuse or neglect are not included in criminal history checks where they are not covered by criminal law. A more consistent approach could be considered.

Issues have also been identified with vulnerable children falling through the gaps as carers move between jurisdictions. Further work could build on CDSMAC initiatives to better harmonise approaches to intelligence sharing, police operations, and mutual orders recognition, to ensure protection follows children regardless of geographic moves.

Further work could also be undertaken to ensure perpetrators of violence and abuse are monitored and tracked across systems.