Brother Paul Smith returned to Australia from Britain in 1990 committed to establishing a national telephone counselling service for children that would be preventive.

As a De La Salle Brother, Paul Smith had worked with young people in a number of community and institutional settings. At the time of his visit to Britain he was in his tenth year as Director of Boystown, a residential facility for young males placed in care as the result of child protection concerns or offending behaviour. His frustration with Government bureaucracies and their inability to support preventive programs was well known in Queensland.

The study tour of Britain included time at Childline, a telephone counselling service for children established in 1986. Childline counselled 57,342 children in 1990 with more than 30% of their calls relating to physical or sexual abuse. Childline is 80% funded by donations and covenants, and markets itself to children in need of help and protection. The service is supported by a referral system and a client-call data base as well as a sophisticated supervision system for its volunteer counsellors.

Brother Paul returned home impressed with the potential of a service such as Childline, but determined to both broaden its access by children and to support the counselling with state-of-the-art technology.

This story begins with a letter. It is a bureaucratic letter and rather boring. But it has significance. It comes from the Department Of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. It may or may not surprise you to learn that this letter was sent to a twelve-year old girl, a British citizen, who was visiting her father, an Australian citizen, in Australia. The girl’s step-mother approached the Bureau and requested assistance to explain Immigration Department procedures to them and to ask for assistance in keeping the child in the country. The Immigration Department had threatened to take the child into custody unless a $50 visa extension fee was paid forthwith. If not paid, the child was threatened with deportation. This situation had arisen because the family had originally been given conflicting information about the date the visa expired. So how did we, a local institution, respond to this crisis and protect the child’s interests? First, the response had to be immediate as custody and deportation were imminent.

The only way out for the family was to pay the $50 visa renewal fee even though it was not responsible for the initial confusion.

An exhaustive series of negotiations ensued with Immigration Department officials, the SA Attorney General’s Department, a constitutional lawyer and the Legal Services Commission to clarify the information at hand, to ascertain the validity of the Immigration Department’s proposed action and to put a case for the child to stay. The Bureau also facilitated contact between the family and the Immigration Department in Canberra and last, but not least, provided emotional and practical support for a family in distress.

The ABS surveys of 1981 and 1988 show that within the total population of handicapped persons a number of families with dependents have one or both parents who are handicapped. Also included within this group are lone handicapped parents and families who have in addition some other non-dependent handicapped person living with them. Besides the usual socio-economic problems surrounding disabling conditions this group are also faced with the difficulties associated with the everyday tasks of parenting. Yet, judging by the professional and research literature, they have received scant attention here in Australia or elsewhere.

This paper reports the results of a small qualitative pilot study of 19 families in which one of the parents had some physical handicap and which examined the everyday parenting tasks faced by them. It reports on some of the difficulties they experienced and also the affirmative action they took to overcome those difficulties.

It is well recognised that the maltreatment of children results from a range of factors; some residing within the person, their family history and background, and others, clearly attributable to social stress and difficulties originating external to the family. In the last few decades, child welfare efforts have centred on the improvement of Child Protection Services and raising the prevention of child abuse as a community concern. More recently, attention has been focussed on strengthening the capacity of families to nurture and protect their own as the best means of meeting the developmental needs of children. However, our best efforts to assist families may still necessitate removal to protect the child.

Research has identified that children removed for their own protection may be at even greater risk in out-of-home care. (Ryan 1987, Dawson 1984) Whether the incidence of abuse of children in out-of-home care is currently equivalent or higher than for the general population, is at this point a secondary concern. Out-of-home care is an essential and complex service. It is imperative to acknowledge that abuse can occur within the very system entrusted with the responsibility of protecting and caring for vulnerable children and young people.

Community Services Victoria (CSV) is assessing the skill requirements of effective practice in its client contact workforce through the Skills Enhancement Project. Staff and clients were asked to identify the skill elements of good practice. This material was then converted into draft competency statements which were validated by other staff groups. Finally, the material was placed in questionnaire format and over 4,600 staff were surveyed about the skills involved in effective client work.

Children Australia will progressively reproduce a number of the Project’s effective practice write-ups and report on conclusions arising from the Project. Further information is available from Bob Burgell at CSV. Telephone (03) 412 7140.

It is extremely hard to escape from news of the Royal Family. Even apparently liberal (with a lower-case ‘l’) British newspapers like The Guardian subject readers to articles that suggest that Charles and Diana enjoy different breakfasts. I cannot remember who liked what, but I can remember being irritated with myself for reading the piece. It has been especially difficult to avoid the Royals in recent months.