Displaying 1 - 8 of 8
Family Matters – Strong communities. Strong culture. Stronger children. is Australia’s national campaign to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people grow up safe and cared for in family, community and culture. Family Matters aims to eliminate the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care within a generation, by 2040.
Family Matters reports focus on what governments are doing to turn the tide on over-representation and the outcomes for children. They also highlight Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led…
Living in unstable long-term government-supported ‘out-of-home’ care (OOHC) is causing harmful and often lifelong impacts for increasing numbers of Australian children. There is a growing awareness that all children need stable homes and families to thrive. This has led to policymakers facing mounting calls from adoption advocates (myself included) to increase the number of ‘open adoptions’* from out of care in Australia.
The difficulties in giving more children safe and permanent homes through adoption led the Federal Parliament’s Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs to…
The provision of child protection services varies considerably across the world. This paper offers a broad overview of some of the main approaches to child protection used internationally. Using examples from Canada, Sweden, Belgium and the Gaza Strip, it offers policy-makers the chance to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, as well as how these examples might be used to inspire improvements within the Australian context.
This brief from SNAICC – National Voice for our Children highlights the issue of the disproportional numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care in Australia, which has reached "national crisis proportions," and outlines key steps that need to be taken to address this issue.
Family Matters reports set out what governments are doing to turn the tide on the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out of home care (OOHC), and the outcomes for children and their families. The reports contribute to efforts to change the story by explaining the extent of the problem and reporting on progress towards implementing evidence-informed solutions that aim to eliminate, within a generation, the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children living away from their parents and families in statutory OOHC.
State and…
INTRODUCTION
A recently released interim report on Modern Slavery and Global Supply chains indicates it is likely a Modern Slavery Act will be introduced in Australia and that the prevention of ‘orphanage tourism’ will be included in its scope. This will have implications for a range of Australian organisations and businesses, including Australian charities which currently fund overseas orphanages (or other forms of residential care) and/or facilitate volunteering and voluntourism (including short-term mission trips, or STM) to orphanages.
As such, this briefing note has been…
INTRODUCTION
A new piece of legislation is likely to be introduced by the Australian Government in 2017-2018 which will, in effect, ban the facilitation of ‘orphanage tourism’ and seek to address the links between Australian foreign aid funding and ‘orphanage trafficking’ overseas.
This briefing note has been written to give Australian churches an overview of the issue and an understanding of the likely ramifications of the legislation for churches which engage in short-term missions (STM) and/or are funding overseas ‘orphanages’ (any form of residential care for children, hereby called…
This report proposes a public health approach to promoting safe and supportive family environments for children and preventing child maltreatment in Australia. According to the report, a public health approach focuses on the problem of child maltreatment (and its antecedent risk factors) as it exists on a continuum of severity, and aims to modify the risks for child maltreatment in the entire population, improving family environments more broadly.
The report describes the nature of a public health intervention and defines the importance of safe and supportive family environments for…