The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle has been the policy guiding the placement of indigenous children in most Australian child protection jurisdictions for around fifteen years. The Principle requires the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community representatives in decision making concerning indigenous children, and ensuring that alternative care placements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander careproviders.

Most Jurisdictions still have a significant number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children placed with non-indigenous careproviders, and community based Aboriginal and Islander child care agencies continue to express dissatisfaction about the nature and level of consultation which occurs when welfare departments are taking action to protect indigenous children.

This paper, which was presented at the IFCO conference in Melbourne in July 1999, examines why there has been such limited improvement in Child Placement Principle outcomes. Work undertaken in Queensland to address the over representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the child protection system will be outlined from both a departmental and community perspective. The paper argues that if strategies for addressing these issues are not located within a framework of self determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, then they will not work.

Discourses about child abuse are usually adult centred. In the research described in this paper young people were asked to give their perspectives on abuse. They described abusive behaviour as that perpetrated by persons who use their power to control those they consider as lesser.

The young people described two forms of abuse. One was feeling let down by those with whom they are in an emotional relationship. The other was feeling discounted because of their age. The children and young people considered the right to negotiate or to have ‘two-way compromise’ as essential to the prevention of abuse. The power to disclose or not to disclose abuse was described as an important issue for children in enabling them to maintain some control over their situation.

The research process and findings highlighted the way in which the institutionalisation of adult power over children as legitimate, excludes children’s knowledge on issues concerning them by preventing their participation in knowledge creating forums, and by discounting their competency as children to contribute.

In recent times, research that has traditionally concerned itself with children ‘at risk’ has been supplemented by studies which have concentrated on the characteristics of those children who display resilient behaviours despite the presence of negative individual, family or environmental factors. A range of internal and external ‘protective factors’ that contribute to childhood resilience has been identified in the literature.

The research being presented here reports on one phase of a longitudinal study that is tracking children originally identified as displaying resilient or non-resilient behaviour. After one year, the persistence of resilient or non-resilient behaviours is noted among the 55 children in the study; the incidence of changed behaviour – either from resilience to non-resilience or vice versa – is low. Case studies of three children are used to illustrate the trends in the findings and to provide real examples of how the presence or absence of protective factors impact on the lives of real children.

This paper provides an introduction and background to the Family Decision Making project which was piloted in the Department of Community Services Cumberland/Prospect area of NSW, in partnership with Burnside (an agency of the Uniting Church NSW). The paper outlines the core features and values of the DoCS/Burnside project with the aim of promoting discussion as to Family Decision Making’s wider application as a best practice model of working with children and families.

This paper provides an overview of the state of the art in consultation at the close of the third decade of its existence as a major form of delivering mental health services in the United States of America, and its somewhat later introduction in Victoria, Australia. Gallessich’s framework for consultation (1983, 1985), amongst others, is compared with the Victorian model. Issues raised include the need for consultants to understand the boundaries of consultation, its limitations, the state of its knowledge base and the uniquely Victorian contribution of a framework of several levels which enables an integration of the knowledge borrowed from a range of sources to assist in the improvement of its practice. A later paper to be published in ‘Children Australia’ looks at the steps in the consultation process.

This paper examines the principles of procedural fairness and their application to welfare practice. The paper considers whether social workers ought to measure the adequacy of their practice, not just against those requirements ususally set out in the professional Codes of Ethics, but also against the procedural fairness expectations of decision-making more usually the province of courts and like bodies. The paper concludes that these expectations are not only in keeping with the Code of Ethics, but that competent practice demands no less of practitioners.

The mail I receive is both one of the best and one of the worst things about writing this contribution to Children Australia and other pieces for journals and the broader media. The letters I receive raise a number of questions. Why are abusive letters so often written in red or green ink? Or both? Why do abusive letters use so many CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation marks?!! Why are abusive letters so often anonymous?