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How to enhance the evidence base of practices in complex child

protection environments

Professor Fiona Arney

Lastensuojelun tutkimuspäivät 17.-19.9.2014 Helsingissä, Fiona Arney

The Australian Centre for Child Protection

• Multidisciplinary team with a practical focus on research, application and implementation in:

– working with children who have experienced trauma, adversity and cumulative harm,

– with parents with multiple and complex needs to prevent and respond to child abuse and neglect,

– supporting the workforce in child- family- and adult focused services to work with vulnerable families; and

– guiding systems reform.


Australian child protection systems based on 1960s’ knowledge

• Henry Kempe and colleagues – Battered Child Syndrome – Serious physical abuse – Detectable through broken bones, failure to thrive – Parental psychopathology – Infants and toddlers – Intergenerational, lower SES

• Relatively uncommon in the population, reported incidents and investigative process to substantiate and then decision making about children’s living circumstances and protective factors


What new knowledge do we have?

• An understanding of the scope of risk factors (AOD, MH, FV, homelessness, populations)

• A much better understanding of their impacts (neurobiology, data linkage, studies involving children, the voice of parents who have had their children removed)

• Theories of change (how to prevent or ameliorate the impacts)

• Models of intervention (emerging Australian evidence base)

• Cost effectiveness


How are we applying that knowledge?

• A national commitment from the Council of Australian Governments – the National Framework

• Children and families as the focus of policy, workforce development, practice and research initiatives (e.g., Protecting and Nurturing Children - Building Capacity, Building Bridges; Centre for Excellence)

• Specific Funding (e.g., Child Aware Approaches) • Innovation in program development and service

design • Emerging focus on quality of implementation


. In my opinion, the symbiotic link between supporting

families and having fewer children in the system is irrefutable and has been ignored or underestimated by government for too long. I am also firmly of the view

that better rehabilitative and therapeutic family support for parents under stress — especially in

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities plagued with chronic neglect — is the key to stronger

Queensland families and safer children.

(Carmody Inquiry report, 2013)


Unintended consequences

• Expansion of the remit of child protection system

• A large body of knowledge to incorporate into practice, policy and program design; proliferation of practices

• Service fragmentation as we focus on individual problems rather than children and their families

• Complexity makes it difficult to convey the message (why, what, how and who) to others (it depends…)

• Focus on risk factors rather than determinants of risk factors (hurt, pain, isolation, emotional regulation)


Delfabbro et al, 2010, p.1425


Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2013, p.46)


. • Limits of traditional research translation methods

in child protection

• Lack of demand for research and lack of accessibility of research

• Our work on why research is used and why programs and practices spread led us to a new approach

• Combining our research expertise with contextual expertise and implementation methods


Our approach

• Research and evaluation

• Policy solutions

• Practice solutions

Common definition of the problem

Common understanding of

aetiology and consequences

Possible interventions

Test and trial

Share knowledge

Embed in systems


.

The challenge of ending child abuse is the challenge of breaking the link between adults’

problems and children’s pain.

(UNICEF, A League Table of Child Maltreatment Deaths in Rich Nations, September 2003)


Children in homelessness services

• Services typically developed for older single men • Young people/teenagers presenting to services • Children who were with their families were not

counted as clients of the service • Ability of services to understand the needs of

children and to respond to their needs • Partnered with Mission Australia, a national

homelessness service provider, in the formation of a collaboration to investigate and improve responses to homeless children.


Scope of the issue

• The problem was far bigger than anyone had thought • During 2011-2012, 229 247people were clients of a

specialist homelessness service

• Children under 18 years old made up 43% of all clients; 17% were under 10 years old.

• Children were much younger than anyone had thought • 56,188 children accompanied a parent/carer to a

homelessness service; 69% were under 10 years old (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2012).


Impact and Interventions

In 2009 the Australian Centre for Child Protection won a small grant to explore what was known about the impacts of homelessness and its precursors on children. This review propelled the Australian Centre for Child Protection to investigate how homelessness services were responding to dependent children and to test new ways of responding. The findings of the research were circulated widely while support for a change to the way that homelessness was addressed in Australia was slowly building.


Embedding in policy and practice

• Policy has changed: dependent children are considered as clients of homelessness services and are therefore entitled to have their needs addressed.

• Service provision has changed: service providers are responsible for addressing the needs of dependent children as distinct from those of their parent/carer.

• Practice is changing: information showcasing promising practice has been widely circulated. Training and resources that support work with homeless children are available.


Help and healing may not necessarily, and in fact may be unlikely to, flow through formal service delivery channels. Parents and caregivers will often seek support from other family members and friends before seeking professional help. Building and supporting informal, as well as formal, networks of support could be one of the most powerful strategies available for supporting … children and families. (Arney, 2010)

Kinship care for Aboriginal children

• Over-representation of Aboriginal children in care (11 times non-Aboriginal children)

• Concerns around the Stolen Generations and where children are placed

• Aboriginal child placement principle

• Concerns about cultural, physical and emotional safety

• Approaches not based on best practice or cultural understanding

Scope of the issue

• Aboriginal children make up 3.5% of the population but are almost one third of children in out of home care

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13

% of South Australian Aboriginal children in care on 30 June


Percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in preferred out of home care placements*, States and Territories, 30 June 2012

Source: AIHW (2013) Child Protection Australia 2011-2012, Cat No. CWS43 (data extracted from Table A25, p81)

*Preferred placements include with relatives/kin, other Indigenous caregivers, or Indigenous residential care.

81.674.4 69.3 65.4

56.3 53.745.7

38.1

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

NSW SA WA ACT VIC QLD TAS NT

National issue

• National meeting for the National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children about these issues – May 2013

Key Recommendation

• Culturally appropriate carer assessments and appropriate financial, professional and emotional supports for carers – inclusion of Aboriginal world view and use of interpreters


World first research

• Joint interest and expertise

– Winangay Resources Inc

– Sidney Myer Fund

– Australian Centre for Child Protection, UniSA

– Institute of Child Protection Studies, ACU

– Queensland Government – Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services

– Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak (QATSICPP)


Implementation and outcomes study

• Assess the effectiveness of the Tool as it is rolled out across Australia.

• Of particular interest is understanding how the Tool is being applied in practice, and how its use may translate into outcomes for carers, children and their families.

• In particular, does use of the Tool result in more Aboriginal carers being recruited and in more Aboriginal children being placed safely with their families and communities?

• Scale up as a result of the findings of the study


Other methods to combine research for practice/policy change

• Postdoctoral research fellows • Rather than one-off research projects such as evaluations

• Programs of research in key areas of interest

• Signs of Safety program (new practice models in child protection)

• Child Advocacy Centre (multi-agency responses to child abuse and neglect)

• Research support to inquiries and reforms • From these inquiries there will be legislative, policy and funding

changes

• Best informed by research, practice and policy knowledge


In summary

• Rewards of child protection research

• Impact on policy and practice

• Practice informed research

• Multiple perspectives build better understanding

• Partnerships build greater impact and more quickly


Child protection research can lead to unanticipated consequences…


Professor Fiona Arney

Director

Australian Centre for Child Protection

University of South Australia

+61 8 8302 2918

[email protected] www.unisa.edu.au/childprotection

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.unisa.edu.au/childprotection

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