We would like to begin this Editorial by expressing our thanks and appreciation to Frank Ainsworth for his many years of dedication and ongoing support for Children Australia. Frank has a long and esteemed history of providing counsel to families, practitioners, organisations and the court system on issues relating to child protection in NSW and beyond. Frank is well known for his cross-examination of the child protection system, its successes and failures; and is always keen to voice his opinion for change and improvement. He is an advocate of family inclusive practice and believes the child protection system should be working towards keeping children in their homes as much as possible. Together with John Berger, who also has a longstanding association with the child and family sector in Australia and is currently the CEO of St Barts in Perth, Frank has brought together a number of contributors to this themed issue, which examines issues of family inclusive practice, family preservation and areas for improvement to the broader child protection system.

This article records briefly the history of the Family Inclusion Network as an organisation that promotes family inclusive child protection practice. Since its inception in Queensland in 2006, Family Inclusion Network organisations have been formed elsewhere and now exist in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales. In 2010, developments at a national level saw the formation of the Family Inclusion Network Australia. Most organisations are incorporated and some have achieved charitable status. Each organisation endorses a common set of aims and objectives. There are, however, differences in terms of whether state or territory organisations accept government funding or not, are staffed by professionals or rely entirely on volunteer personnel, and have a capacity or otherwise to provide direct casework services to parents. Some state organisations focus on information and advice services, and legislative and policy reform efforts. All have telephone advice lines and a webpage presence. This article also focuses on a code of ethics for child protection practice and on the contribution parents can make to child protection services, and their rights to do so.

In this article we illuminate the ‘resourceful friends’ model of community social work as it has been applied in current work in the Family Inclusion Network (FIN) in Townsville, Queensland. Reflections from both parents and supporting members of FIN illustrate its very successful use in this context. This way of working is assessed, particularly in relation to its place in affording an invaluable dimension in family inclusive child protection processes. In conclusion, the contribution to building social capital and promoting greater social justice is identified.

This paper outlines the findings of a study which asked parents how they experienced participating in family preservation programs (FP) in Melbourne, Australia. The study explored whether participation was influential in changing their perceptions of themselves as parents. It was expected that participation would lead to a stronger sense of self-worth and that this could be harnessed to facilitate change. The study found that parents’ sense of self as a parent was enhanced by participation in FP programs and this led to an increased sense of hopefulness in their capacity to care safely for their children.

Historical and current child protection practice in Australia has been subject to severe criticism, yet in spite of a persuasive case for an alternative family inclusive form of child protection practice – something that offers the potential for improved client outcomes and improved worker job satisfaction – the model is not yet in widespread use. An international review of promising innovations in child protection, including examples of programmes from Australia, resulted in a list of eight identified trends. Common to all of these trends was evidence that good-quality evaluation had contributed to their recognition. If family inclusive practice is to gain greater acceptance, especially by bureaucrats, policy makers and holders of the purse strings, sophisticated forms of programme evaluation will be required. Such evaluations might emphasise practice-based research where researchers and frontline practitioners work together on all aspects of evaluation, including the initial design stage. While gold-standard randomised controlled trials may be included, methodological pluralism should allow inclusion of alternative approaches, such as realist evaluation and the involvement of practice research networks. The use of external evaluators might be usefully replaced with greater reliance on evaluation partnerships between evaluation experts (researchers) and frontline agency staff. Follow-up systematic reviews and meta-analyses might then allow the development of evidence-based arguments for change. Some Australian programmes have shown how rigorous evaluation practices have underpinned success and this evaluation focus could be emulated.

The media coverage of foster care in Australia is replete with adoration for foster carers who look after disadvantaged and difficult children and youth. As this article is being written, New South Wales is holding a ‘foster care week’ with enhanced media coverage and praise for foster carers, the recruitment of new foster carers and acclaim for the ‘foster carer of the year’. Yet, there is another side to foster care that offers less than ideal circumstances for children in care. There is the worrying issue of multiple placements, the problem with children and young people running away from foster care before they reach the legal age for discharge, and evidence of increased incidence of poor educational attainment and involvement in juvenile offending for young people in foster care. In addition, there are cases of foster children being abused by foster carers. As adults, former foster-care children and youth are over-represented among the homeless, in adult correction centres, the unemployed and the users of mental health services. This article documents these negative outcomes of entering the foster-care system, and asks whether family (or non-relative) foster care can survive this evidence. For too many children and young people, family foster care may not provide better outcomes than less-than-optimal parental care from which the children were removed. An alternative is to reduce the use of family foster care and increase intensive support and parenting education services for birth parents who have limited parenting capacity. The aim should be to limit the number of children being taken into care.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that at 31 December 2011 there were 5,098,694 children and young people in Australia under the age of 18 years, while for the period 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2012, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's report on child protection indicates that there were 48,420 substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect in Australia. The likelihood is that almost 95 (94.96) per cent of Australian children and young people were not abused or neglected in that period; and this is a cause for national celebration. These figures are good reason to praise the parents and caregivers of the 5,050,274 children who were not abused or neglected. We argue that there is a need for an emphasis in the political debate about child protection that focuses on children who are not abused, in order for the issue of child abuse and neglect to be placed in proper perspective. The lack of perspective in the current dialogue simply results in an unending demand for more resources for detection-focused services. Instead, there has to be increased emphasis on preventative services for vulnerable families who fail to meet community child-rearing standards. These exacting standards of parenting can only be achieved through parent education and the provision of intensive and extensive family support services, combined with sensitive monitoring of at-risk families. Accordingly, this article is written in a dissenting voice.

Parenting programmes are very much a part of the international landscape in Western communities. Coping skills provide a useful resource for parents and children in managing their everyday lives, both together and individually. Following a 5-year research programme with parents and children in an early years setting, Families Can Do Coping was developed as a comprehensive parenting skills programme that incorporates parents’ understanding of their own coping and that of their children. The programme was delivered with the twin aims of teaching communication and coping skills to parents. In 2012, five 2-hour sessions were delivered to 19 parents in an Early Learning Centre at the University of Melbourne. The five-session programme focused on providing parents with information regarding coping skills and the use of visual tools to assist parents to engage with their children in conversations about coping. Additionally, parents completed a pencil-and-paper coping skills evaluation for their child. The programme outcomes included perceptions of parents’ enhancement of their wellbeing, and development of proactive and productive coping skills in both parents and children. After a 3-month period three parents provided feedback on their progress and use of the new tools and strategies for maintaining helpful parenting.

There is a lack of research data about children with disabilities across the range of child and family welfare services. The study reported in this paper explored the extent and nature of disabilities in children in a variety of programmes within OzChild, an Australian welfare agency. Caseworkers and teachers working with children at the beginning of 2012 considered all children receiving services from their programmes. Of these 475 children, 200 were identified as having a disability. This article presents data on these 200 children and recommendations for improving outcomes for them. A major finding was that disability added further layers of complexity to already complex child–carer/family situations presenting to under-resourced practitioners and programmes. There was an extensive variety of disabilities across all programme areas, and varying proportions across programmes ranging from 29 per cent in kinship care and family services to 44 per cent of children in foster care. Data were suggestive of problems with some diagnoses, and the need for further research in these areas. The need to address questions of causation of environmentally based disability through preventative programmes, and a more targeted approach to families with multiple and complex needs were indicated. Lack of respite care was jeopardising some placements of children with severe disability. Lack of educational achievement and participation in social, cultural and recreational activities were identified, as were inequities in funding across different programme areas – all of which resulted in some children with disabilities continuing to be substantially disadvantaged. These data led to the generation of recommendations for changes to practice, programme and policy to improve outcomes for children.

The emerging phenomenon of youth ‘sexting’ presents a range of unique legal, policy and educative challenges. In this article we consider four key issues in recent responses to youth sexting behaviours: (1) the definitional dilemmas surrounding the term ‘sexting’; (2) the inadequacy of existing legislative frameworks for responding to these behaviours; (3) the problematic messages conveyed in anti-sexting campaigns; and (4) the relative silence around gender-based violence in non-consensual and abusive encounters. We argue that the non-consensual creation and distribution of sexual images has largely been framed in public debates as a problem of youth naiveté, with the effect of censuring young women's ‘risky’ sexual behaviour, and leaving unproblematised gender-based violence. We suggest that more nuanced understandings of sexting that distinguishes between the consensual and non-consensual creation and distribution of sexual images must inform legal, policy and education-based prevention responses to the misuse of new technologies.

Peer attitudes towards children with asthma can significantly impact on their self-confidence and, hence, their social acceptance. It can be difficult for children with asthma to spend their time in class with peers who do not understand their situation and physical limitations. This paper investigated the attitudes of peers towards children with asthma, and explored factors affecting their attitude scores. A literature search failed to locate any instrument that measured the attitudes of school-aged children towards peers with asthma. Therefore, a new scale was developed by generating a list of items based on existing attitude measures; confirming the content validity by an expert panel; and pre-testing the scale with three primary school children. The main study invited children to complete an asthma knowledge test and the attitudes scale as a class activity. A convenience sample of 545 children without asthma from 16 primary schools participated in the study, of which 507 children completed the attitude towards children with asthma scale. Responses were coded and entered into SPSS 17.0 software for analyses. Approximately 80 per cent of children scored 8/10 or more on the test, suggesting a highly positive attitude expressed by children towards their peers with asthma. Two factors affected the attitude scores – being a female, and having higher asthma knowledge score. The study provided information about the proportion of children who have positive attitudes towards peers with asthma and the factors that affected their scores. The investigation led to the development of the Peer Attitudes toward Children with Asthma (PACA) scale.