The papers published in this special issue of Children Australia were originally presented at a two day symposium held in Melbourne on 26 and 27 November 2009. The symposium, Adoption, fostering, permanent care and beyond: Re-thinking policy and practice on out-of-home care for children in Australia, was jointly convened by the Department of Human Services (DHS), Victoria and the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University in conjunction with the History of Adoption in Australia project (Monash University 2009).

The event was a partnership between professionals working in this area and university researchers. Each group brought different perspectives and imperatives to the table. For DHS and the sector, the immediate frame of the symposium was the major policy statement Directions for out-of-home care, announced in May 2009 by the Victorian Minister for Community Services after consultation with community service organisations and young people living in care (DHS 2009a). It announces a framework for change which incorporates action on seven fronts or ‘reform directions’. These are to support children to remain at home with their families; to provide a better choice of care placement; to promote wellbeing; to prepare young people who are leaving care to make the transition into adult life; to improve the education of children in care; to develop effective and culturally appropriate responses to the high numbers of Aboriginal children in our care; and to create a child-focused system and processes (DHS 2009a). The driving principle informing the reforms is to ensure that policy and service provision are centred on the needs and interests of children and young people, and to ensure that young people are consulted as to what their needs are (rather than assumptions being made by adults as to their needs).

While the emerging theory of ‘social investment’ offers an opportunity to advance the political discourse beyond the false dichotomy between economics and social justice, social investment for Indigenous children and families must be built on the awareness of the need to promote human rights, respect Indigenous cultures and address the historical conditions that create disadvantage.

For many Indigenous children and families, mainstream Australian society fails to provide the conditions for social growth because it is built on systemic racism. In order to create the conditions for positive social engagement for Indigenous children and families, there needs to be a social investment framework which recognises that colonisation has impacted negatively on Indigenous social and economic capacity, and which builds on the strengths of Indigenous culture and respects the self-determining rights of Indigenous communities in order to re-build capacity.

A holistic, cultural strengthening and self-determination/human rights-based framework is the best approach to ensure that Indigenous children have a better future and participate positively in Australian society without forfeiting cultural identity and integrity. A human rights and culturally respectful framework can facilitate a ‘meeting place’ where Indigenous cultures can engage with the dominant culture and positive partnerships for social investment can be developed.

A series of harrowing reports across the 1990s on the past removal of children, black and white, from their families have impacted on children and family policy in contemporary Australia, and on the way in which this is reported by the media and understood by the public. This paper briefly surveys some of these consequences and asks how we, as a community, can learn from the past with respect to questions of the welfare of children, without being burdened by that past.

This paper discusses the negative effects on children who are placed in out-of-home care and the need for early intervention and support for families to enable children to remain at home.

Child protection systems have always sought to respond to the interests of vulnerable children. Protective paradigms have changed over time as the ‘best interests’ of vulnerable children are defined in different ways. Within protective systems we are currently debating how best to provide children at risk with security and stability: should we seek to reunify them with their birth families or seek alternative options for their permanent care? The debate is unlikely to lead to an either/or option, but rather one where we need to consider many complex factors in both the decision-making process and how to implement these decisions. These factors include: the rationale and process for decision-making; the importance of timing (child's, parent's, carer's, service system and legal system); how to meet the child's heightened developmental needs before, during and following this process; the importance of the child's identity; and the level and type of real-life support needed (by either the birth family or permanent care providers) on the ground. It is also about the relationships needed to provide children with the foundation of a secure base and a safe haven so they can learn that adults can provide comfort, safety and a base upon which they can learn to explore the world.

This paper argues that having child-centred policy is not the straightforward matter it might seem. After presenting some historical snap-shots to demonstrate that children have frequently been the victims of policies aimed at addressing needs or perceived problems which are not child-centred, the author argues that contemporary policies frequently leave out significant variables, and the impact of culture is one of these. Focusing on the Australian-Asian region, the author notes the dominance of family and community over individual rights in many countries in our region. The likelihood is that family and children's services in Asian countries will conceptualise services to families and children in non-western ways, in spite of the fact that the principles underlying child protection which they espouse are frequently western in orientation (that is, they have a child's rights focus). Using these insights as a lens through which to look back at Australia, it is possible to see Australia as having ‘cultural’ traditions which also value family and community over the rights of children. It is argued in conclusion that future policy needs to take such realities more firmly into account, and given the increasing presence of and influence of cultures with a family-centred focus in Australia, greater attention also is needed to our international context.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, Australian responses to children in need were significantly influenced by the belief that such children posed a threat to society. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, child welfare legislation states that ‘the best interests of the child must always be paramount’ (Children, Youth and Families Act 2005, Victoria). This paper surveys some of the local and overseas influences which directed child welfare practice and policy towards a philosophy in which the wellbeing of the child is central. It suggests that the concept of the child's personal welfare influenced the understandings of welfare officials long before the term ‘best interests’ was widely employed, but also that this transition in thought did not necessarily correlate with marked improvements in the outcomes for children within the welfare system.

This paper considers the development of the idea of children's rights, firstly at an international level, and then nationally and locally. Focussing on the central ‘right’ as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) – that ‘the child … should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love, and understanding’ – the paper points to a contradiction implicit here between the child imagined as a rights-bearing individual and the child imagined as in need of protection, by the family and, if necessary, by the state.

New Zealand currently operates separate doors and different entry pathways for people wishing to adopt, foster or offer permanent care for a child. This presentation outlines the work now underway to develop a unified application, preparation, assessment, training and support system for applicants wishing to care for a child, whether by adoption, guardianship or as a transitional (foster) caregiver. Placing the child at the centre, One Door uses a framework comprised of six core attributes for parenting a child not born to you; safety; attachment; resilience; identity; integrity; and support. A challenge for the One Door design team will be the application of the model to the family/whänau caregiver whose entry into the care system is, in the main, through necessity not desire.

The ‘best interests of the child’ is rhetoric often applied and to an obscure legal concept. Nevertheless, it remains one of the most important standards, if not the most important, to be applied when attempting to determine what might be the interests of children at law. But as might be the case with other supposedly fundamental principles, there is much ambiguity in the meaning and uncertainty in the application of this principle and the standard it presumes to impose. Not surprisingly, many questions remain unanswered. Firstly, what exactly is the paramount status of the best interests standard? Secondly, in deciding the best interests of the child, does the ultimate responsibility lie with the judge or does it require some judicial deference to community values, as presumably expressed in the legislation? Lastly, does the standard, as it stands today, run the risk of being so general that its application can easily be distorted? Indeed, given the inherent difficulties in articulation and application of the standard, it might be unrealistic to expect mere legal provisions to ease social and emotional tensions that exist in the realm of child welfare today. As children themselves generally do not make applications to the court, their interests inevitably will be dependent on those of other parties, such as parents and the various professionals who assist them. As long as these principles are sought to be upheld in a system which is philosophically and practically adversarial, our ability to promote, maintain and protect the best interests of children will be inhibited. Is near enough good enough … or is it just the best we can do?