2. Setting the scene

2.1 The role of the Consultation Paper

This Consultation Paper is intended for wide distribution across Australia. It is not intended to be an academic paper or a comprehensive literature review, but rather the catalyst for discussions about developing National Standards in Out of Home Care. The intent is to gather a wide range of views about how to best support children and young people, their families and carers, through what is often a very difficult time in their lives.

The paper is designed to stimulate conversations and generate ideas ahead of a call for submissions, and national consultations, starting in February 2010.

Use of the terms 'children' and/or 'young people' throughout the paper is generally intended to apply to both groups.

2.2 Learning from history

All children and young people have the right to be safe, to receive loving care and support, and have access to the services they need to enable them to succeed in life. This basic right is fundamental to the well-being of a child and his or her healthy development.

Former child migrants and the Forgotten Australians were denied the basic right of all children to receive protection, support and loving care. Australians are committed to learning from this history and improving the opportunities given to our children and young people.

The Australian Government, state and territory governments and the non-government sector recognise families as the central system that supports, nurtures and guides children and young people. In turn, effective supports for vulnerable parents and families are an important priority. There is a national commitment to provide child-centred, family-focused responses as the most effective way to help children and young people who are disadvantaged or at risk of becoming disadvantaged, later in life.

2.3 Protecting children is everyone's responsibility

The Australian Government, state and territory governments and the non-government sector are committed to addressing the needs of vulnerable children, in particular those at risk of abuse and neglect.

State and territory governments have responsibility for statutory child protection and provide a range of services to enhance the safety of children through:

• universal interventions that target whole communities and families to prevent maltreatment and abuse
• early interventions to help vulnerable families or children who are at risk of maltreatment in order to alleviate problems and prevent escalation
• targeted interventions focused on families where an incident has already occurred in order to reduce the long-term implications and reduce the likelihood of repeat incidents²'.

These interventions span a number of different areas including early childhood, physical and mental health, family support, education, community services and justice.

Recognising that the safety and well-being of children is the responsibility of all levels of government, the first National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children 2009-2020 (the National Framework) was developed by the Commonwealth in partnership with all state and territory governments and non-government stakeholders³.

The National Framework was endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments on 30 April 2009.

The National Framework aims to ensure that Australia's children and young people are safe and well.

In order to measure the effectiveness of the National Framework, governments and the non-government sector have set the following target:

A substantial and sustained reduction in child abuse and neglect in Australia over time.

Under the National Framework there are 12 national priorities⁴, including:

• Joining up service delivery - Implement a 'joined up' approach to service design, planning and delivery, targeted to the hard-to-reach, most disadvantaged families and children, by leveraging services and support from Commonwealth, state and territory governments.
• Closing the Gap - Support Indigenous community-building activities in areas such as culture and connectedness, strengthening families and communities and speaking up about abuse.
• Seeing early warning signs and taking early action - Improve identification of early indicators of the needs of at-risk children and their families through a common approach to assessment, referral and support in universal and secondary prevention services, with appropriate information sharing.
• Improving support for carers - Continue to explore options for improving financial and non-financial support to grandparents, kinship and foster carers, provide specialist supported playgroups for grandparents and other carers, and provide enhanced support for grandparents and kinship carers as a specified target group under the Communities for Children program.
• Developing National Standards for Out of Home Care - These standards will aim to improve the outcomes and experiences of children and young people who are unable to live with their families.

The development of National Standards for Out of Home Care (the National Standards) is one of the important, early actions under the National Framework, and all state and territory governments and the non-government sector have agreed to collaborate in developing these standards.

Advisory firm KPMG has been engaged to start work on developing the National Standards.

2.4 How many Australian children experience Out of Home Care?

At 30 June 2009, there were 34,069 children and young people in Out of Home Care in Australia.⁵ The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that the number of children in Out of Home Care increased by 44 per cent between 2005 and 2009.⁶ The rate proportion of children in Out of Home Care differs between jurisdictions, ranging from 4.3 per thousand in Victoria to 9.4 per thousand in New South Wales.⁷

In 2008-09, the majority of children in Out of Home Care were in home-based care (94 per cent), living either in foster care (47 per cent) or with relatives (45 per cent). A small proportion of children were living in residential care (4.8 per cent) or other care arrangements (2.7 per cent).⁸

2.4.1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Out of Home Care

In 2009, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 0-17 years were over nine times as likely to be in Out of Home Care as non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (44.8 in every thousand compared with 4.9 in every thousand).⁹ At 30 June 2009, there were 10,512 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Out of Home Care in Australia.¹⁰ The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that this over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Out of Home Care has been increasing over the past decade in every state and territory,¹¹ but the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare cautions that the increase may be due to a combination of improvements in the identification of Indigenous people as well as increases in the number of Indigenous children requiring child protection.¹²

Nationally, over 70 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (7,600) in an Out of Home Care placement were placed with relatives/kin, other Indigenous caregivers or in Indigenous residential care. This figure can be attributed to adoption in every jurisdiction of the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, which recognises the right of an Aboriginal child to be raised in an environment that allows children to access their own culture, extended family and community.¹³ However, this principle has highlighted the complexity of disadvantage and the relatively poorer socioeconomic circumstances of some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and the lack of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers (accredited or otherwise) available to the Out of Home Care system.

The number of placements made in accordance with the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle vary greatly between States and Territories, highlighting a number of issues that require further investigation including the need for more support for recruitment, assessment, training and support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander foster carers and kinship carers. At 30 June 2009, a total of 2,861 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Australia were placed with non-Indigenous carers.¹⁴

2.5 Current Out of Home Care services and standards in Australia

Out of Home Care services are designed to:

• provide a safe environment
• contribute to improving developmental outcomes
• assist in addressing issues that lead to the Out of Home Care placement.

In Australia, each state and territory government has a duty of care, and invests a great deal, to ensure that the Out of Home Care system within its jurisdiction provides the opportunities for optimal development and well-being of children and young people in care. Australian and international jurisdictions and their Out of Home Care frameworks are discussed in more detail at Appendices A and B.

Given the range of developmental stages and transitions a child may go through whilst in care, it is important that the Out of Home Care system provide necessary and appropriate supports to aid this process. This involves filling many of the roles that a parent or family would be expected to satisfy, including supporting children through key life transitions, identifying when the child needs assistance and ensuring that protective factors are present.

Each state and territory government has its own legislative and policy framework governing and regulating their child protection system. The Australian Institute of Family Studies has analysed the principal pieces of legislation across Australia pertaining to child protection, and identified broadly similar provisions relating to:

• the principle of 'best interests' of the child
• whole-of-government and community responsibility for child protection and child welfare
• early intervention
• the participation of children and young people in decision making
• culturally specific responses to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
• diversion from the court system
• Out of Home Care
• permanency planning and stability of care
• after care.¹⁵

The approach to ensuring quality provision of Out of Home Care services in Australia is primarily focused on service standards for providers and setting out processes, procedures and accountability requirements.

Some jurisdictions are moving towards a quality assurance model for Out of Home Care. Such models tend to focus on what is expected of providers rather than specific outcomes for children and young people in care. Discussions of quality and standards in relation to Out of Home Care generally relate to building sector capacity (i.e. improving the number of caseworkers) or setting service-level standards (i.e. ensuring that children access health professionals or that a caseworker is allocated within a specified time

2. The Allen Consulting Group Pty Ltd (2008), Inverting the Pyramid: Enhancing Systems for Protecting Children, Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, n.p., p. 4.
3. Commonwealth of Australia (2009), Protecting Children Is Everyone's Business: National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children 2009-2020, p. 9.
4. Commonwealth of Australia (Council of Australian Governments) (2009), Protecting Children Is Everyone's Business: National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children 2009-2012, accessed November 2009.
5. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2010), Child Protection Australia 2008-09, Child Welfare Series No. 47, Cat. No. CWS 35, Canberra: AIHW, p. 38.
6. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2010), Child Protection Australia 2008-09, Child Welfare Series No. 47, Cat. No. CWS 35, Canberra: AIHW, p. 38.
7. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2010), Child Protection Australia 2008-09, Child Welfare Series No. 47, Cat. No. CWS 35, Canberra: AIHW, p. 38.
8. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2010), Child Protection Australia 2008-09, Child Welfare Series No. 47, Cat. No. CWS 35, Canberra: AIHW, p. 42.
9. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2010), Child Protection Australia 2008-09, Child Welfare Series No. 47, Cat. No. CWS 35, Canberra: AIHW, p. 46.
10. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2010), Child Protection Australia 2008-09, Child Welfare Series No. 47, Cat. No. CWS 35, Canberra: AIHW, p. 46.
11. In 2000, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were 6.1 times as likely to be in Out of Home care as non Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (18.3 in every 1,000 compared with 3 in every 1,000 nationally).
12. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2010), Child Protection Australia 2008-09, Child Welfare Series No. 47, Cat. No. CWS 35, Canberra: AIHW, pp. 21-2.
13. Secretariat of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children (2005), Achieving Stable and Culturally Strong Out-of-home Care Policy Paper
14. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2010), Child Protection Australia 2008-09, Child Welfare Series No. 47, Cat. No. CWS 35, Canberra: AIHW, p. 67.
15. Bromfield and Holzer (2008), A National Approach for Child Protection: Project Report, AIFS Child Protection Clearing House, p. 25,http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/cdsmac/projectreport.pdf(Opens in a new tab/window), accessed November 2009.