Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle ‘Little Children are Sacred’: Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, which has come to be known as the ‘Little Children are Sacred’ Report, was released in late June 2007 (Wild & Anderson 2007). The Report has received little analysis. Rather it is the response by the Commonwealth Government to the Report's findings that has dominated debate. Despite repeated accounts of child neglect provided to the inquiry, these accounts seemed to be viewed as the landscape in which child sexual abuse occurs, rather than a significant and urgent issue in their own right. The relegation of child neglect to background mirrors what research elsewhere tells us about what happens to child neglect referrals; lacking the sense of immediacy and danger of child sexual abuse, they are frequently minimised or overlooked.

This paper is an attempt to refocus attention on the Report itself through a lens of child neglect, and suggests that in limiting the terms of reference to child sexual abuse, the Report missed the opportunity to engage with the significant issue of child neglect and the practice of child protection work in cases of child neglect.

When Australia signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, federal and state governments agreed, under Article 19, to create appropriate legislation and all necessary social and educational measures to protect children from all forms of abuse and exploitation and provide treatment and social support for victims and their carers. Seventeen years later, Australian child advocates are wondering where those services are, especially for those outside state capital cities. More importantly, where is the justice system that protects children and caters for victims of sexual abuse?

Australia, in common with other former British colonies, inherited the Westminster adversarial system, described by Mallon and White (1995, p. 50, cited in McGrath 2005) as:

While it is universally accepted that residential child care workers have a key role to play in the quality of services for children in care, the working conditions of many staff are poor and do not reflect the importance of their work. Very little research has been undertaken which focuses on the needs of residential child care staff. The following study examined the factors affecting the job satisfaction of residential child care workers in Melbourne, Australia.

Many traumatised children in Australia do not receive the type of trauma-focused treatment endorsed by international guidelines and, as such, they suffer from the consequences of intergenerational trauma. Even when trauma-focused treatment is available, there is a group of children who are difficult to engage in treatment and do not want to talk about their traumatic memories. Clinicians are often reluctant to address the trauma, for fear of ‘waking up sleeping dogs’. All children deserve a chance to heal from trauma and I believe we, as a society, have a responsibility to provide children with appropriate services and treatment methods to help them achieve this. This article describes the Sleeping Dogs method, a three-phased trauma-focused treatment method, based on a collaborative use of interventions by therapists, child-protection workers, residential staff, school and the child's network. A Six Test Form is used to analyse the possible reasons why the child is unable to talk about his or her traumatic memories, for which interventions are planned. Case examples with children who can be difficult to engage in trauma-focused treatment are used to illustrate interventions. Clinical experiences show the Sleeping Dogs method has been successfully used internationally, as well as remote communities in Australia.

This article addresses the challenges facing the child welfare system in general, and child protection practice in particular, in responding to female genital mutilation (FGM) in an Australian context. Policy and programmatic responses to FGM are analysed to identify how child welfare concerns may be addressed in a culturally sensitive manner. PGM is depicted as a multi-dimensional phenomenon, related to a complex of inter-connected cultural, social, economic, religious, gender and migration issues. An appropriate response is one that acknowledges these antecedents through the utilisation of a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach. Legal and child protection responses to FGM are inadequate if operating in isolation and are most effective as adjuncts to community development strategies that are aimed at education, information dissemination and consciousness raising among affected communities. More work needs to be undertaken to develop frameworks for practitioners in a cross-cultural context, particularly in the light of continued settlement within Australia of migrant and refugee communities from countries with different child-rearing practices and beliefs.

This paper discusses the need for a national early childhood intervention policy in Australia, including a universal approach to children's services as a platform for the prevention of child abuse and neglect, supporting families and enriching the lives of all children.

It considers the literature on early intervention, including the theoretical and research base of successful programs and the link between early intervention and the prevention of child abuse and neglect. It examines the way the child welfare and children's services sectors have grown and the imperative at the beginning of the 21st century for a closer alignment of services.

The United Kingdom's ‘Sure Start’ early intervention strategy is considered in so far as it attempts to develop a more comprehensive approach to child welfare by developing programs which are based on the research. Finally the paper asserts that recent strategies introduced by Federal and State Governments to promote childhood health and wellbeing are positive first steps, but need to go further to seriously address increasing numbers of children reported as suffering harm through abuse and/or neglect.

This qualitative study used a narrative approach to address the vulnerabilities and problems experienced by the children of sex workers in Iran. A purposive sample of women who were referred to drop-in centres were invited to take part in semi-structured interviews. An analysis of the data identified 8 main themes and 12 sub-themes, most of which related to risks and harm being perpetrated on the children of sex workers. The main risk to these children was the likelihood that they would escape from home and become sex workers themselves. Also identified as problematic was the risk of child labour, becoming members of offending groups and becoming a member of a brothel.

Racial trauma describes the emotional trauma and associated psychiatric reactions, such as distress and compromised well-being, which arise from perceived incidences of racism. It is an emerging psychological paradigm that is intimately linked to state-based policy measures such as child removal. Racial trauma is also deeply institutionalised in Australia’s education system as a consequence of the focus on dominant (white Standard Australian English speaking) culture, language, literacy and numeracy standards. Despite receiving little recognition in mental health work or the education sector, the effects of such trauma are profound and can account for the high rates of suicide and social dysfunction that we see in remote Indigenous communities as well as the low academic achievement and English language acquisition rates in Aboriginal students. This paper presents a literature review related to publications that scrutinise the relationship between racism in policy and schools and racial trauma, drawing on some research findings by one of the authors. It suggests alternative Indigenous pedagogies that can both mitigate and remove racial trauma from the school environment and lead to successful academic outcomes and well-being for Aboriginal students.

This paper is a reflective commentary that highlights some of the issues that impacted upon my thinking and perspectives as a social worker working in the child, youth and family sector. The paper takes the form of a narrative with some accounts of incidents that were memorable and challenged the ways I thought about myself and issues we face in the sector. My concerns are that, while there are many aspects of the work done in this sector in the past that we don't want to repeat, there are also features of service delivery that we overlook in the contemporary tendency to want quick solutions and pursue trends. The conclusions I have come to include the need for community-based, co-located services for parents and children who need supports and out-of-home care responses (OOHC).

This paper examines the way the state welfare system deals with young women who are subject to statutory orders and their need for support as they move towards independence. Young women’s views of their needs are highlighted. Evidence is drawn from the author’s and other relevant Australian and overseas research. The issues are examined within the context of general community trends and policy and practice implications are studied using Community Services Victoria as a case example.

A variety of social and economic factors are leading to young people in the general community living with their parents for longer periods of time. In contrast, young people subject to statutory orders, especially young women, are often being discharged from these orders - and thus isolated from adult guidance - shortly after they pass their mid-teens.

Assumptions about these young women’s needs - that they no longer require nor wish for support and are ready for complete independence at this early age - are challenged. The legal, organisational and practice constraints which reinforce these assumptions are analysed. The apparent contradiction arising from young women refusing services which they also say they require, is also discussed.

The author demonstrates that there is a need for a reconceptualisation of the issue. A new kind of partnership between workers and young women on statutory orders is needed and a policy and administrative framework which facilitates this. The implications of the findings for practice and policy - and especially the important contribution ttiat young women’s views can make to the development of social policy - are presented.

Foster care has been available in Australia for almost 150 years. Carers have long been recognised as “the ultimate volunteers” who care for the most traumatised, emotionally disturbed children in the nation. Given that they provide the foundation stone of the child protection system, one might expect carers to be supported and valued. Numerous studies have shown otherwise. Warning signs over the years have been ignored by child welfare authorities resulting in carers leaving the service faster than they could be recruited and the most needy young children being placed in caravan parks, cheap motels and group homes supervised by occasional, inadequately trained, generalist carers employed on seven hour contracts by agencies.

Young people who leave Out-of-Home Care (OoHC) are a significantly vulnerable cohort. No after-care support program to date has been completely informed by young people and their care team. This scoping study explored the perspectives of young people and their wider care team on: (1) challenges surrounding the transition process; and (2) how these challenges can be addressed. Semi-structured interviews and focus group sessions were conducted with 33 stakeholders from OoHC (i.e., young people in care; young people who had transitioned from care; carers; caseworkers and senior OoHC executives). Four themes captured the challenges of transitioning out of care, including: (1) inadequate processes underpinning the transition; (2) instability within the family unit; (3) financial challenges and (4) lack of independence during care. Stakeholders agreed that greater support during the transition process is necessary, including life-skills training while in care and a post-care worker and/or mentor to provide after-care support. These findings provide compelling insights into the challenges that young people transitioning from OoHC experience and possible solutions for how such challenges can be addressed. These findings will inform the development and delivery of a co-designed and specialised after-care support service for this population.

Caring is the central activity for many women who care for children with disabilities and other dependent relatives and it circumscribes virtually all of the other activities they carry out. This paper will compare the daily experiences of such women (who have been participants in the author’s recent research into home-based care) with what has been written in social work literature about women who ‘care’.

This paper describes the development of the Family Life Education Programme, an innovative group approach to parenting issues. The programme aims to (i) utilise the strengths of a multidisciplinary allied health team and (ii) to avoid focusing on the limited issues of child management and discipline. Previous styles of parent education groups are discussed, together with their shortcomings and the authors’ frustrations with such approaches. The rationale for the format of the new programme is described, and the detailed structure outlined. Two innovations are highlighted. Firstly, the programme focuses on issues from both the child and parent perspective (eg, child's play/parents’ recreation). Secondly, the six-week programme uses professionals from various disciplines as weekly consultants, while one member of the team provides week-to-week continuity as an anchor. The programme is evaluated in terms of the impact on the multi-disciplinary team, and the feedback from participants. It is argued that the Family Life Education Programme offers a balanced approach to the many issues confronting parents of young children and it could be implemented not only within multi-disciplinary teams, but also co-operatively across agencies.