Welcome to the first issue of Children Australia for 2012. This year Rachael and I are continuing in our roles as co-editors with the continued support of our editorial consultants, and OzChild staff. However, this year I will be taking long service leave and leaving the journal in the safe hands of Rachael for the months of May and June. This break will give me a chance to travel and I am hoping to meet with a couple of our editorial consultants in New Zealand and Tasmania along the way.

Planning for ‘permanency’ or a ‘family for life’ has been an aspiration for many children in the out-of-home care system who are unable to return to live with their parents. It is a concept derived from research, which indicates that children who ‘drift in care’ have generally poorer outcomes than those who find at least a more stable, if not ‘permanent’, home. This article examines the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW] data that reports publicly on child protection and children in out-of-home care to find evidence about how Australian children in out-of-home care are faring against this dimension of the care experience. Little can be said on the basis of this data. The article is written as a ‘think piece’ to raise questions about why, if such a dimension of the care experience is considered important for a significant group of children, the data is so opaque.

Local and international research suggests an overrepresentation of young people leaving state out-of-home care in the youth justice system. A range of factors appear to contribute to this correlation including child abuse and neglect, placement instability, experiences of residential care, and unsupported transitions from care. This article presents the findings of a Victorian pilot study conducted in partnership with Whitelion, a not-for-profit organisation specifically offering support to ‘young people involved with or at risk of involvement with the youth justice and/or out-of-home care and leaving care services’ (Whitelion, 2012), to examine the interrelationship between the child protection and youth justice systems, and particularly to explore the processes that take place when young people involved in the youth justice system leave state care. A series of interviews and focus groups with Whitelion workers were used to explore whether leaving care plans and policies address and minimise involvement with youth justice; the role, if any, of formal consultations by child protection services with youth justice regarding this group of care leavers; and the ongoing role of youth justice postcare, particularly when young people are in custody at the time of their exit from care. Some significant implications for policy and practice are identified.

The exploratory study of meanings of volatile substance use (VSU) on which this article draws (involving 28 young people living in Melbourne, Victoria, Australa, aged from 13 to 24 years, each with experience of VSU, and 14 expert workers) was not designed to investigate any relationship between VSU and living in out-of-home care while subject to protective orders. However, when asked about their lives at the time they commenced or intensified VSU, 8 participants were adamant that living in out-of-home care was a significant factor. Two narratives reiterated by these young people are identified in the article: first that VSU is part of life in out-of-home care, and second that VSU ceases to be appropriate after leaving care. Young people who are living in out-of-home care report substantially higher levels of VSU than occur across the general population. This article shows how narrative accounts (even when expressed by small numbers of participants) provide insight into how VSU and other drug use may become embedded in particular institutional settings through assuming meanings and utility for users that are specific to these environments. While previous literature on the aetiology of VSU generally emphasises individual or familial risk factors, this article argues that out-of-home care may function, at least in some instances, as an institutional ‘risk environment’ for VSU and that this should be further explored through future research. Adjusting models of care may offer new strategies for responding to this form of drug use.

The Discovering Relationship Using Music, Beliefs, Emotions, Attitudes & Thoughts (DRUMBEAT) program used drumming as a way of engaging at risk youth in a form of musical expression, while simultaneously incorporating themes and discussions relating to healthy relationships with others. The program targeted young people who are alienated from the school system. An evaluation was undertaken with a sample of 60 program participants in Western Australia's Wheatbelt region. The evaluation used both quantitative and qualitative methods, including informal discussions with staff and participants, observation, participant and teacher questionnaires, and school attendance and behavioural incident records. Pre- and postintervention data were collected on self-esteem, school attendance, antisocial behaviour, and levels of cooperation and collaboration. Students participating in DRUMBEAT increased their scores over a range of social indicators that act to increase connection with the school community. The results support the underlying program theory, that combining the therapeutic potential of musical expression with basic cognitive–behavioural therapy can be used successfully to deliver a range of social learning outcomes, including emotional control, improved relationships and increased self-esteem. Further longitudinal studies are required to assess the sustainability of the measured outcomes and their vulnerability to external factors.

When a convicted or alleged child sex offender is living, or having contact, with his own children or stepchildren, the obvious worry is that these children are victims or will become victims of sexual abuse. One way of determining the risk of this occurring is for the convicted or alleged offender to undergo a forensic sex offender risk assessment. In this article I raise questions regarding the usefulness of sex offender risk assessments within the statutory child protection context. Most importantly, I ask whether static and dynamic risk assessment instruments can accurately predict the risk an alleged or convicted sex offender poses to his own children. I conclude that ‘high’, ‘moderate’, and ‘low’ risk outcomes of forensic sex offender risk assessments in the child protection context are unreliable and can result in error, and explain that these errors have consequences that, within the child protection context, have consequences that can be dangerous to children.