Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency response to FSP consultation 

In broad terms, the operational framework and key requirements identify the areas through which a more enhanced family support service system will become more effective. However, VACCA believes that there should be more emphasis on four key factors not currently explicitly addressed in the framework/requirements:

• Cultural competence - particularly in relation to services for Indigenous children and families
• Children's rights/best interests focus - as embodied in the Victorian children and families services legislation/system and
• Research and evaluation focus - including culturally competent research and evaluation processes.
• Adherence to the Aboriginal Agencies first principle

Conceptually, a culturally safe and culturally competent service system for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families is one that:

• Focuses on the underlying socio-economic issues that lead to child neglect and abuse.
• Focuses on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children's right to culture and cultural safety
• Views culture as a source of resilience.
• Responds holistically to child and family services recognising that Aboriginal and Islander cultures view the whole child in the context of the whole family and the whole community.
• Focuses on child well being and early childhood development, including cultural well being.
• Prioritises and expands community based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child and Family Care Agencies and Services.
• Aboriginal Services are best placed if adequately resourced to meet the needs of their community
• Focuses on intervention that are based on Aboriginal understandings of trauma, grief and loss.

It is critical that access issues for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is addressed by ensuring providers are culturally competent through standards and key performance indicators.

The Victoria's Best Interests of Children Principles provides a child safety focus for services, in the context of family and community. In relation to Aboriginal children the framework uses the lens of culture to inform safety, stability and development and the outcomes we which to achieve in these domains. From the perspective of Aboriginal children and families we need to understand the practical ways in which the lens of culture can inform the domains of safety, stability and development and the outcomes we wish to achieve to ensure children's rights and safety are promoted.
Under the Best Interests framework, the child's experience is put first and is understood through the lens of age and stage, culture and gender. The lens of culture informs all aspects of the child's experience. Through this lens, priority is given to the safety of the child in terms of the provision of basic care and protection from current and future harm. For Aboriginal children, safety includes the protection of the child from cultural abuse including racism. Aboriginal children should feel that their Aboriginal identity is valued and treasured so that they can freely express their cultural identity.

Focus is also given to promoting the child's stability which requires positive relationships and connectedness with parents, families, carers, friends and significant adults. For Aboriginal children, another key area which promotes stability is connectedness, and hence a sense of belonging, to culture, land and Aboriginal community. It is critical to consider how connection to country, family and community is given due consideration, given the importance of the holistic approach for Aboriginal children. For Aboriginal children stability is understood as broader than a sole focus on one to one relationship with a parent. Continuity of relationships is also a key facet of stability. For Aboriginal children, continuity with their community, family and cousins is also significant for their sense of stability. The child's development must be attended to in terms of the domains of health and growth, emotional and behavioural development, education and learning, family and social relationships, identity (including sexual identity), social presentation and self-care skills. The Aboriginal child's development must be recognised in the context of the community connectedness factors which promote health development for the Aboriginal child, Aboriginal understandings of emotional and behavioural development and Aboriginal learning approaches. Is the child growing up strong in culture? Are there Elders providing support for their maturation needs in accordance with Aboriginal cultural norms?

Research and evaluation frameworks which are culturally competent are also critical for effective family support. While we welcome the components of the program requirements which refer to access to information and data, it is important that Aboriginal services are involved in analysis and data collection to ensure both the efficacy of information and Aboriginal governance of research processes. We also believe that evaluation frameworks are critical to ensuring that we learn from innovation and success.

Finally, in terms of the requirement to Strengthen collaboration between and amongst providers and Government and community, VACCA believes that processes which pay respect to Aboriginal self-determination both ensure culturally appropriate engagement and effective collaboration to achieve better outcomes for children and families.

VACCA believes that the points raised above under Theme 1 are critical to effective program design. Community engagement, cultural competence, children's best interest focus and Aboriginal community participation and control of research and evaluation are all key elements which can enable improved services and service pathways.

We believe that when it comes to delivering services to Aboriginal children and families it is important that

• Aboriginal agencies and communities are involved and take a leadership role in program design
• Resources are provided to enable Aboriginal agencies to build capacity at both an agency and individual staff level in critical areas of expertise
• Cultural competence standards and key performance indicators are developed for all mainstream agencies and mainstream agencies are required to engage appropriately with Aboriginal services.

Aboriginal agencies that already invest in innovation and program service design are encouraged and pilots are appropriately evaluated and, if successful, rolled out.

Aboriginal services need the capacity to offer one to one casework services, groupwork and have the capacity to engage the broader family through family meetings where appropriate. A service system that can provide one access point for both universal and targetted clients groups is more likely to achieve good outcomes for children and families. This removes service access barriers for vulnerable families.

FSP Services should enable clients to find the right pathways to appropriate services through both flexibility and referral capacity.

VACCA currently runs an integrated program in the area of family services. VACCA has been at the forefront of developing innovative and culturally relevant programs particularly in relation to parenting and supporting the welfare of Aboriginal children and families. Our Early Intervention & Family Support Program currently offers Aboriginal families interventions across a continuum of support ranging from early intervention & prevention work to the provision of both secondary and tertiary services. Programs range from playgroups where we operate 7 playgroups across Victoria. We offer individual counseling to family support and group work. We work intensively with our families offering up to 20 hours per week intensive in home support. Our Aboriginal Family Decision Making Program has been successful in keeping children connected and ensuring that families are involved in key decisions where their children are in child protection.

We offer an integrated service where staff work across all the different program areas and will generally follow a client from one program to another. We offer families the following services:

• Home visits to provide parenting advice & support,
• Limited Counseling for adults and children in relation to family matters
• Behavior management strategies
• Referrals to other Programs and advocacy in relation to housing, income security, education etc. for allocated clients.
• Linking families to community activities and supports
• Limited Emergency Relief - Food vouchers only
• Group programs supporting parents, carers and children

It has been our experience that Aboriginal families believe that the current service system is there as a reaction to their having failed in an aspect of their parenting, we believe that Aboriginal families need to be engaged in the family services system through positive engagement and through the use of strength based practice. Evidence suggests that many Aboriginal families are engaged in short episodic involvement with Family Services for food orders etc rather than engaging with the service to address their often numerous and complex support needs.
We also believe that we need to re-educate Aboriginal families in understanding that the Family Service system is a right of every family and can be a positive experience. Aboriginal Services are best placed to undertake these tasks and families are more likely to respond where services are provided by their community by those who have been trained to successfully engage families to bring about change. We would support standards with explicit key performance indicators match against the needs of Aboriginal people for Family Support Services to ensure that families receive high quality service provision

In terms of innovation, VACCA is an advocate of Aboriginal Family Centres which are based on the concept of re-creating culturally safe places which embrace, strengthen, nurture and protect. Aboriginal family centres would provide culturally secure, safe and inviting environments which embrace Aboriginal culture and enables infants, children, youth, Elders and families to participate in activities that strengthen and celebrate Aboriginal family life and values as a basis for better health, education, and positive parenting. Aboriginal Family Centres would:

• Promote Aboriginal culture which can be reflected in unique building designs
• Promote contemporary Aboriginal family life models as a basis for positive parenting
• Provide early intervention, relationship and information services
• Be utilised by Aboriginal communities
• Run a number of culturally appropriate formal and informal activities that appeal to all members of the community
• Run a variety of youth-focused activities
• Be owned and managed by the community
• Demonstrate capacity building of and by the community, including space for Indigenous business innovation
• Be welcoming of the community and have a warm, friendly and inviting atmosphere
• Provide formal and informal meeting places as part of a multi-purpose facility
• Provide training and education development programs and activities; and
• Provide various community health, education, children and family and wellbeing services.

As raised before there should be clear cultural competence standards for all staff.

VACCA advocates for more Aboriginal specific services in the FSP area. In terms of Aboriginal communities, services should be designed to fit, and be capable of integrating with, the Aboriginal community structures and regions that already exist - whether based on historically constituted communities, current statewide agency structures or Traditional Owner communities - and ensure that community leaders and Elders are involved in design and delivery.

Given the level of disadvantage and need in Aboriginal communities, it is appropriate that greater resourcing is available for Aboriginal families.

Bodies such as the Secretariat for National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) and statewide child and family agencies should be involved as partners in the processes of design and delivery given their expertise.

Funding for providers should be based on performance, client satisfaction and cultural competence standards. In terms of funding for Aboriginal agencies it is important that there is funding security, particularly as community development approaches, as well as being more effective, take time to ensure community buy-in and progress in outcomes.

Action/research evaluation processes should be involved throughout service contracts to ensure accountability and the development of 'learning' communities, particularly given situations of entrenched disadvantage.

It is critical that best practice is both identified and resourced so that entrenched situations of disadvantage can be turned around. Too often we find that successful programs either remain pilot programs or that services that do deliver best practice are penalised rather than rewarded before their positive impact in the community can be sustained. Programs which are successful can create examples that, once appropriately contextualised, can be used as best practice at a national level.

It is VACCA's view that funding should ensure all Aboriginal communities have effective and appropriate service levels. The needs of Victorian Aboriginal communities are, in many ways, just as great as in remote area communities.

Distribution of resources needs to be equitable and clear through performance measurements, effective evaluation and tendering processes.

One of our concerns in the past has been that the design of tenders - even when they include services to be delivered to Aboriginal communities - are focused on mainstream services and do not require cultural competence. We would therefore advocate for bodies such as SNAICC to be involved in the tender process.