This is an edited version of the keynote address given by Dr Dorothy Scott at the 6th Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect – Dialogue, Dreaming, Decisions – which was held in Adelaide on 20–23 October 1997.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has uncovered evidence that organisations sometimes provide opportunity for the sexual abuse of children. How do organisations go about preventing this? The authors of this paper consider the case of an out-of-home care (OOHC) agency which failed to protect children. By identifying gaps in practice and culture in this case, the authors suggest that protecting children in OOHC requires a “weave” of organisational structures, staff development and cultural competence. In this case, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the organisation was able to create an opportunity for access to vulnerable young people by using strategies we can now identify as grooming behaviours. He did this by using his positional power. He ignored standards, isolated protective adults and therefore children and young people, rewarded compliance, discouraged reflective practice, used his culture to avoid scrutiny from funding and oversighting agencies, and created an organisational culture of fear and secrecy. In effect, he used culture to trump safety. Even in the stressful conditions of managing an OOHC service, good practice is important, not only because it meets the standards and legislation, but because this is how services maintain the safety of children and young people in care.

The education of children in care suffers significantly from a range of disruptions by virtue of them being in care. Research shows that the academic attainment of children in care is lower than that of other children in the general population. Consequently, many young people leave care with minimum or no educational/vocational qualifications and subsequently face adversity in adulthood. Using two case examples this article argues that workers need to look for the strengths in children in care and facilitate the mobilisation of those strengths for them to work their way towards a successful adulthood.

This paper discusses the increasing similarity between Australia’s states and territories in their child protection legislation. The paper deals mainly with the principles underlying child protection laws, definitions of abuse and neglect, and the way legislation deals with the likelihood and severity of harm to the child. The trend is towards adopting a common set of principles, and definitions which are relatively precise in targeting particular ‘types’ of abuse and eliminating status offences. However there are significant differences even between states which broadly adopt this type of legislation, and some states adopt quite different approaches. There is still little consensus on how likelihood and severity of harm are dealt with. The paper, in welcoming the principle of common legislation, notes a wide range of issues in the developing legal paradigm which have been subject to little or no public debate. It is not clear that the increasing ‘homogenisation’ of child protection laws is enshrining the kind of legislation required.

In every state and territory in Australia, child welfare departments, under various names, maintain or, alternatively, fund group homes for children and young people in the non-government sector. Increasingly, these group homes offer only four places with no integrated treatment or educational services. In that respect they can best be viewed as providing care and accommodation only. Since 2010, following the release of a definition of therapeutic residential care by the National Therapeutic Residential Care Work Group, there has been debate about how to make group homes therapeutic. In 2017, as part of a wider reform effort, New South Wales renamed all their out-of-home care (foster care and residential care) as intensive therapeutic care and ceased using the term residential. The net result is that the group homes in New South Wales will from now on be referred to as intensive therapeutic care homes. This article raises questions about the utility of this renaming and explores whether or not group homes can be therapeutic given the characteristics of the population of children and young people they accommodate, their small size, the staffing complement and the limited job satisfaction with high staff turnover as a consequence of this smallness. All of these factors lead to the well-documented, anti-therapeutic instability of the group home life space.

Hoarding disorder (HD) is a psychiatric condition that negatively impacts individual sufferers, their families and the larger community. The disorder goes beyond problems with excessive clutter; it also presents with deficits in executive functioning, attachment and affect regulation deficits. This paper focusses on the needs of adult children of parents with HD, who directly experience the consequences of the disorder throughout their life cycle. We explore the existing research on the psychological, relational and social impact of parental hoarding on adult offspring. We discuss the clinical implications of these findings and offer possible psychological interventions that may be of help in this vulnerable population.

In Australia there is limited research and information regarding how Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) families are assessed within the child protection system. This paper explores assessment issues faced by child protection investigation officers when working with CALD families in the Queensland child protection system. The research examined the level of knowledge, training and experiences of child protection officers and whether they were ‘culturally competent’. The study found that entry level officers did not receive adequate training and resources, and lacked CALD-specific knowledge on how to deal with cross cultural issues when working with CALD families. Respondents indicated that interpreters‘ services were effective during investigation and assessment of CALD families. The findings of this study highlight key concerns in the provision of child protection assessments, practice, policy and service delivery when working with CALD families.

This article examines the assumptions linking stress and the lack of social support to the need for relief child daycare. The literature reviewed finds support for the view that such daycare can be a useful preventative intervention. It is a valid option to consider among the range of family supports, given accelerating rates of child abuse reports.

The author's clinical experience with the Child Protection and Mental Health Care systems informs this brief practice-focused paper. The author posits that Secondary Traumatic Stress and Vicarious Trauma are central to understanding the impact of relationally traumatic material and the experience of individuals, families, team and the wider ecology of care systems. In particular, the author hypothesises that the tendency of systems to become fragmented in operation, with silos of sub-parts working parallel to each other, may be a natural adaptation to the ways in which traumatic experience ripples across system boundaries. This ‘ripple effect’ may lead to increasing emotional and relational reactivity, and survival-oriented inward focus of energies and efforts. The metaphor of the brain and nervous system is used to explore ideas of connection and integration in care systems. Trauma-informed leadership by individuals and teams is also touched upon in relation to reducing fear-driven clinical practice.

This article, which is built on media discourse analysis, provides an insight into how public opinion on the work of courts has developed into a discourse of disapproval. The discourse of time is often used to evaluate the work of courts and tends to meet with disapproval when related to sentencing and when the Family Court fails to deliver equal parental access to children. The Family Court is also the subject of discourses of fear within the media, with stories often focusing on child abuse and horror stories of neglect designed to attract and recruit an audience to media outlets. In addition, the discourses facing the Family Court are now firmly tied to time as a major aspect of decision-making. Because of this contested view, child protection may be reduced to a secondary perspective. This paper recommends a change to discourses surrounding courts by all parties in order to facilitate better understanding.

Intercountry adoption, often of children post-infancy, is one way of forming a family in Australia. However, few studies have invited Australian parents who have incorporated older children into their family to tell their story. Fathers are under-represented in studies of parenting generally and adoptive parenting specifically.

As part requirement for a clinical psychology dissertation, with ethics approval from the relevant university, 28 parents (13 fathers and 15 mothers) were interviewed about their experiences of adopting children over the age of 24 months from orphanages in China, Ethiopia, India and Thailand. Although parents’ experiences and recollections were diverse, almost all parents had been confronted by difficult child behaviours, at least initially. Contrary to previous research, the child's gender, age or duration of institutional care did not appear related to parental experience.

Six major themes emerged from parent interviews: (1) the long wait and intense emotions of adoption; (2) disparity between expectations and reality; (3) recognition of children's difficult past experiences; (4) parenting as a path to self-discovery; (5) the perception of needing to present as coping; and (6) unmet needs. Mothers blamed themselves for their children's behavioural problems, rather than attributing difficulties to children's previous adverse life events. Both mothers and fathers were reluctant to use support services because they felt scrutinised and feared repercussions, and those who sought assistance generally found professionals ill-informed and unhelpful. Parents made recommendations about how the adoptive parenting process could be improved and expressed a strong desire for more information, both pre- and post-placement.

Children and young people placed in out-of-home care are often extremely vulnerable and can require intensive support. Their carers are often faced with significant challenges in effectively responding to their individual needs. This paper is the first in a series of four aimed at supporting carers to make effective responses to challenging behaviours displayed by children and young people in out-of-home care. This paper considers factors that influence an individual child or young person's behaviour as a means of encouraging proactive responses by carers that will address individual need. The series of papers is informed by Edelbrock's (1985) work identifying four clusters of challenging behaviours, with each paper examining one of these clusters. This first paper has a focus on oppositional behaviours. Ensuing papers will examine offensive behaviours, aggressive behaviours and delinquent behaviours respectively.

This pilot study of child protection case conferences in a region of Melbourne highlights the dynamics of inter-organisational and inter–professional interaction. Data from direct observation of a small number of case conferences and focussed interviews with participants before and after each case conference, in addition to an interviewer administered questionnaire with professionals from agencies regularly participating in case conferences was analysed using manual and computerised methods. The findings relate to: parental attendance; interagency and interprofessional dynamics: case assessment focus; and worker anxiety about conflict. The management of conflict, the tension between the different purposes of case conferences, and the importance of the quality of leadership in case conferences, are discussed.

This paper draws on a substantial body of anecdotal, therapeutic and research-based literature on sibling relationships and sibling placements. It draws attention to the nature and significance of sibling relationships which are usually of lifelong importance in terms of both identity and support. Placement of sibling groups in out-of-home care, especially when the children have high emotional and physical needs, are complex whether they are placed together or are separated. Consideration is given to the long-term psychological consequences of separation of siblings, as well as the resource issues involved in keeping siblings together or separating them. It is suggested that, even when children appear very disturbed, separation is not necessarily appropriate.

Due to the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the out-of-home care system many children will not always be cared for in a culturally appropriate placement. Therefore, cultural support planning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people must be a high priority for all staff, carers and volunteers of out-of-home care services. Six themes have been identified as assisting in the provision of cultural support planning within placements. Each theme has a detailed list of resources that can be accessed for children and young people, carers and professionals.

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.

This paper addresses the question: Are the consequences of child sexual abuse moderated or exacerbated by the family, the legal system and other support structures which are involved following disclosure? To answer this question, the present study employs a methodology which enables the young women to discuss their experiences and feelings in each of these areas. Through a four stage interview process, in- depth data was gathered from five young women whose cases had been dealt with through the legal system, and from their mothers.

Given that little research has been undertaken in this area, particularly in Australia, the current work focuses on the ability of these groups to provide acceptance and validation subsequent to disclosure, and the resulting responses of the young women. The study concludes with a discussion on the effects of the response of the family, the legal system and other support on the young women, and raises some issues crucial to addressing societal response to child sexual abuse. Suggestions for further research are also offered.

Research on young people transitioning out of the childcare system and into young adulthood is inevitably reductionist in that it is unable to take into account the many complex forces that play a role in the development of a child from birth, into and through the care system and on to adulthood. Consequently, studies on the outcomes of care-leavers need to be interpreted with care and thought. This paper serves to illustrate these challenges in research and the various ways that research results can be interpreted by drawing on data from a study being conducted in a residential care programme in South Africa. Demographic, pre-care and in-care variables of a sample of care-leavers are compared with a set of independent living outcome variables a year after aging out of care. Unanticipated results are contrasted with those that were anticipated, and multiple interpretations of the same results are provided. Because of this, the author calls for judicious and humble use of research results when making judgements about the outcomes of care-leavers and the effectiveness of child welfare interventions.