Child Safety and Protection in Indigenous communities Based on a resource sheet produced for the Closing the Gap Clearinghouse

Transcription

1 Child Safety and Protection in Indigenous communities Based on a resource sheet produced for the Closing the Gap Clearinghouse Daryl Higgins Deputy Director (Research) Australian Institute of Family Studies AIJA Conference, 5-7 May 2011, Brisbane

2 Disclaimer: The views are the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute or the Australian Government.

3 Outline The problem of child abuse & neglect of Indigenous children Risk factors for child abuse & neglect Current responses Cultural safety Indigenous community development approaches Indigenous community control Family support programs Family decision-making models for responding to maltreatment Child-safe communities & situational crime prevention principles Facilitators and barriers Summary what we know about what does (and does not) work, and what we don t know

4 The problem of child abuse & neglect of Indigenous children No national study of prevalence Impossible to confidently say whether prevention activities are effective Rapidly increased demand on statutory child protection services Aboriginal / Torres Strait Islander children overrepresented (making up 31% of children in out-of-home care)

5 Risk factors for child abuse & neglect Economic factors Social factors Community factors Parental problems Challenging child characteristics Family characteristics Prior experiences of trauma / victimisation

6 Risk factors Can be concentrated in particular communities Historical / contextual factors that led to trauma and intergenerational disadvantage: Colonisation Disadvantage Cultural dislocation Past welfare practices (cf. Canada s residential schools)

7 Framework for Current Responses National Framework for Protecting Australia s Children Public health approach Addressing known risk factors to prevent occurrence Identifying and intervening in high risk cases Tension between seeing child maltreatment as: Personal family problem Part of a broader societal / structural issue

8 Current Responses a) Statutory Approach (forensic, riskmanagement, adversarial focus) Identification / detection e.g., NTER s voluntary child health screening b) Family Support Approach Address underlying problems that place children at risk Reduce demand on statutory child protection systems

9 Cultural Safety Respect for culture, knowledge, experience, obligations Feeling safe to express one s culture Feeling listened to Should be embedded in all prevention and responses to child maltreatment e.g., young people in out-of-home care: connection to family, community, culture

10 Indigenous Community Development Approaches Key principles: Community empowerment (local knowledge) Indigenous leadership Trust Flexibility Leverage Sustainability

11 Indigenous Community Control Lakidjeka Aboriginal Child Specialist Advice & Support Service Victoria (VACCA) Staff consulted on all statutory child protection notifications concerning Indigenous children & young people in Victoria Ensure compliance with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle

12 Family Support Programs Indigenous Group Triple P (Positive Parenting Program) strong evidence base to support its effectiveness Tailored for Australian Indigenous families with concerns about their parenting, or about their child s behaviour or development Family home visiting programs e.g. Australian Family Partnership Program; SA Children, Youth & Women s Health Service

13 Family decision-making models Grown out of NZ experience Based on Maori & Pacific Islander understandings of family / responsibility Family conference transferring power for deciding about children to those with a life-long connection, and who have to live with the outcome Principle: given appropriate information, families are capable of making responsible decisions about a child who is at risk of abuse / neglect

14 Child-safe communities Situational crime-prevention principles Modifying environmental characteristics that can facilitate crime Making it harder to potential offenders to access children: Access to school grounds Locks on doors for children Teaching children personal safety strategies Increasing adults awareness of sexual offending Reducing access to pornography, alcohol & other drugs Enabling potential offenders to seek help Monitoring known offenders Changing community attitudes that minimise/excuse offending Focused on sexual abuse, but could be applied at the social level to addressing other forms of child maltreatment

15 Factors affecting child safety Facilitators: Organisations and communities that adopt child-safe principles Coordination of strategies between governments, agencies & communities Harnessing goodwill by focusing prevention efforts on community-identified priorities and/or solutions Barriers: Past trauma & ongoing hardship & disadvantage Community dysfunction / hopelessness Poor access to services or unsuitability of mainstream services

16 Summary What we know What we know does work: Taking into account historical context Prioritising cultural safety Control of services by appropriately supported and resourced Indigenous-managed agencies Providing family support and addressing the risk factors for child maltreatment (substance misuse; family violence; mental illness; poor parenting skills) Empowering families to make decisions to ensure safety Community-level strategies that build on situational crime prevention principles and address social exclusion

17 Summary What we know What we know doesn t work: Adversarial, risk-management driven, forensic child protection systems that aren t focused on supporting families in need Focusing solely on detection (e.g., voluntary child health screening), rather than prevention Isolated bans on alcohol or pornography restrictions, without integrated community responses and supports

18 Summary What we don t know Evaluation data are needed to understand whether the following activities are successful in leading to sustained reductions in actual rates of child maltreatment at the community level : Economic strategies to improve financial wellbeing of families Income quarantining to change patterns of spending behaviour individual promising practices that are coordinated and rolled out comprehensively to address the needs of parents and communities

19 Conclusion Community development framework assists with ways of improving Indigenous children s wellbeing Moves beyond an individualised problem to recognising socio-cultural disadvantage, as well as protective factors Local solutions but sustainable implementation Recognising material disadvantage and past trauma is essential for the development of strategies to ensure the safety and wellbeing needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children

20 The Australian Institute of Family Studies Level 20, 485 La Trobe Street Melbourne Closing the Gap Clearinghouse

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