This paper describes the technique of participative case planning, a tool developed and used by the author for working with families who have had their children removed because of abuse and/or neglect. This technique seeks to assist families and practitioners to work together in an empowering way to return children home quickly and safely. The particular model draws on theoretical principles and perspectives of empowerment, case management, case planning, crisis intervention, task centred therapy and contracting.

The paper outlines the steps involved in participative case planning pom preparation for the meeting to its end. It also addresses a number of issues, including the role of the chairperson, involvement of children and non-return of children.

Brother Paul Smith returned to Australia from Britain in 1990 committed to establishing a national telephone counselling service for children that would be preventive.

As a De La Salle Brother, Paul Smith had worked with young people in a number of community and institutional settings. At the time of his visit to Britain he was in his tenth year as Director of Boystown, a residential facility for young males placed in care as the result of child protection concerns or offending behaviour. His frustration with Government bureaucracies and their inability to support preventive programs was well known in Queensland.

The study tour of Britain included time at Childline, a telephone counselling service for children established in 1986. Childline counselled 57,342 children in 1990 with more than 30% of their calls relating to physical or sexual abuse. Childline is 80% funded by donations and covenants, and markets itself to children in need of help and protection. The service is supported by a referral system and a client-call data base as well as a sophisticated supervision system for its volunteer counsellors.

Brother Paul returned home impressed with the potential of a service such as Childline, but determined to both broaden its access by children and to support the counselling with state-of-the-art technology.

Since November 1989 New Zealand has had new statutory care and protection and youth justice procedures. They differ substantially from the procedures under the old 1974 act. For the majority of cases, the disposition of the child, services provided and, in the case of offending, any penalties or restitution imposed are now the responsibility of the family rather than the Court.

This responsibility is exercised through a new official process called the Family Group Conference, at which the State is represented but in which the decision-making power is expected to rest largely with the family. Only if this fails or if the offence falls into the most serious of categories is the matter passed to the Court. A new group of officials has been created to co-ordinate the process. They are known as Youth Justice and Care and Protection Co-ordinators.

This paper studies the decision-making processes that occur in child welfare case conferences. Using a small sample of eight case conferences the study focuses on the way child welfare professionals and parents interact in formulating constructions of “children’s needs” and “parental competence”. The case conference setting, group composition, sequence and the relationships between the health and welfare professionals present are also identified as key factors in influencing the outcome of the case conference.

Our perceptions of children tend to vacillate between a romanticised view of them as young innocents whose unacceptable behaviour should be excused because of their youth, immaturity and impressionability and the contrasting view that they are uncivilised barbarians who, for their own good, must be treated firmly, even severely, so they may leam to distinguish right from wrong and to behave properly.

The ‘child correction’ approach was favoured by the early British settlers in Aotearoa New Zealand. Soon after colonisation there were moves to establish child reformatories on the English model and children were often more harshly treated than adults. It was accepted that the most effective way of correcting children was to hit them with a cane or a whip. Some early observers noted the warmth and affection with which the indigenous Maori people treated their children and contrasted this with the stern and strict attitudes of the Anglo-Saxon colonisers.

This story begins with a letter. It is a bureaucratic letter and rather boring. But it has significance. It comes from the Department Of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. It may or may not surprise you to learn that this letter was sent to a twelve-year old girl, a British citizen, who was visiting her father, an Australian citizen, in Australia. The girl’s step-mother approached the Bureau and requested assistance to explain Immigration Department procedures to them and to ask for assistance in keeping the child in the country. The Immigration Department had threatened to take the child into custody unless a $50 visa extension fee was paid forthwith. If not paid, the child was threatened with deportation. This situation had arisen because the family had originally been given conflicting information about the date the visa expired. So how did we, a local institution, respond to this crisis and protect the child’s interests? First, the response had to be immediate as custody and deportation were imminent.

The only way out for the family was to pay the $50 visa renewal fee even though it was not responsible for the initial confusion.

An exhaustive series of negotiations ensued with Immigration Department officials, the SA Attorney General’s Department, a constitutional lawyer and the Legal Services Commission to clarify the information at hand, to ascertain the validity of the Immigration Department’s proposed action and to put a case for the child to stay. The Bureau also facilitated contact between the family and the Immigration Department in Canberra and last, but not least, provided emotional and practical support for a family in distress.

In a recent article in Children Australia (16:2, 1991) Moore points out how our system of social services and community work reinforces traditional concepts of family (especially mother) responsibility for the care of children with disabilities. This same attitude reflects a fundamental ambivalence in our society towards the provision of state assisted child care. Like care for the disabled, out-of-home care for young children is assumed to rest within the private sphere, so that state assistance in any form becomes gratefully accepted as a generous gift.

Child care in Australia moved into the political realm with the enactment of the Child Care Act in 1972. This legislation described the conditions under which the Commonwealth Government would distribute funds for capital expenses, and provide some wage supplements to non-profit groups delivering child care services in formal centre settings. Since that time, promises of increased Commonwealth funding to meet increasing demand have become more and more ambitious – 20,000 spaces were promised in 1984; 30,000 in 1988; and by 1990, the promise had expanded to 78,000 new child care spaces to be funded by the Labor Party. As it turned out, many of the 78,000 spaces promised during the 1990 election campaign were not ‘new’ at all, but represented already existing private spaces, now made eligible for funding by a change in policy. The bulk of the spaces meanwhile were targeted for after-school care (much less expensive to fund), when research clearly indicated the dearth of spaces and critical need for infant care (very expensive to fund).

Survey data indicated that parents (notably mothers) regarded their own parents and partners as the most important sources of parenting information. Respondents were not at all likely to use parenting courses in a preventative sense, that is, to use courses in an attempt to anticipate problems before they occur and consider ways of dealing with them. Parents reported that they would be more likely to attend parenting courses once difficulties had become established. There was a preference for any parenting courses to consist of one-off sessions on particular topics rather than longer courses. Drugs and teenagers’ was the topic most frequently rated as ‘Very important’ for a parenting course. When presented with hypothetical problem situations, parents showed a preference for solving such problems within the family rather than consulting professionals. Parenting courses were not frequently seen as a solution to such problems. Reason for these perceptions are discussed. It seems that the ways in which parenting courses are described (advertised) may be crucial to their acceptance by parents who might benefit from them.

In an earlier article (Bates, 1990), it was suggested that the test enunciated by the High Court of Australia in In the Marriage of M (1988) F.L.C. 91–979 for denying custody or access in cases where there had been allegations of child sexual abuse was inappropriate. In that case, it will be remembered, the High Court stated (at 77,081) that:

The involvement of the State In the lives of children, young people and their families has taken a new turn in New Zealand since 1989. Now when a child or young person is in need of care or protection or had offended, matters are resolved with their participation and with the participation of their family. At the heart of the new system is the Family Group Conference which is a new forum for consensus decision-making and which is potentially adaptable to different cultural practices. Institutionalisation of the young has been drastically reduced. Families remain a part of the lives of their children. However practice problems remain, goals of cultural appropriateness have not always been achieved and services have not always been made available to enhance the wellbeing of children and young people or to strengthen their families.

Between the years 1960 and 1972, well over one thousand children in all spent a period of residence in the St. Vincent de Paul’s Children’s Homes situated at South Melbourne and Black Rock in Victoria. One wonders about the circumstances which bought these children into care and one also wonders where they are now, 20 or 30 years after leaving St. Vincent’s. How have they coped with the stresses of life during those years? Questions such as this led the author to embark on a research project. Few reports of research of this nature are to be found. The following description of one aspect of that project, the task of tracing the subjects, may go some way toward explaining the scarcity. It shows though, that tenacity can have some rewards.

The ABS surveys of 1981 and 1988 show that within the total population of handicapped persons a number of families with dependents have one or both parents who are handicapped. Also included within this group are lone handicapped parents and families who have in addition some other non-dependent handicapped person living with them. Besides the usual socio-economic problems surrounding disabling conditions this group are also faced with the difficulties associated with the everyday tasks of parenting. Yet, judging by the professional and research literature, they have received scant attention here in Australia or elsewhere.

This paper reports the results of a small qualitative pilot study of 19 families in which one of the parents had some physical handicap and which examined the everyday parenting tasks faced by them. It reports on some of the difficulties they experienced and also the affirmative action they took to overcome those difficulties.

This paper addresses a number of issues relating to welfare planning for children with serious disorders of attachment, including problems in relation to natural families, implications for caregivers of behavioural aspects of attachment disorders, and difficulties in implementing ‘permanency planning’ principles. Historical trends and cycles in policy formulation are referred to, and some suggestions are made with regard to directions for treatment and future planning of services.

It is well recognised that the maltreatment of children results from a range of factors; some residing within the person, their family history and background, and others, clearly attributable to social stress and difficulties originating external to the family. In the last few decades, child welfare efforts have centred on the improvement of Child Protection Services and raising the prevention of child abuse as a community concern. More recently, attention has been focussed on strengthening the capacity of families to nurture and protect their own as the best means of meeting the developmental needs of children. However, our best efforts to assist families may still necessitate removal to protect the child.

Research has identified that children removed for their own protection may be at even greater risk in out-of-home care. (Ryan 1987, Dawson 1984) Whether the incidence of abuse of children in out-of-home care is currently equivalent or higher than for the general population, is at this point a secondary concern. Out-of-home care is an essential and complex service. It is imperative to acknowledge that abuse can occur within the very system entrusted with the responsibility of protecting and caring for vulnerable children and young people.

Recent developments in the statutory family and child welfare field have led to the active promotion of the idea of partnership in the relationship between client families and social workers. This article highlights the international trend of client participation, and while supporting the principle, shows that there are significant obstacles to be overcome before social workers can move beyond the rhetoric.

This paper examines the way the state welfare system deals with young women who are subject to statutory orders and their need for support as they move towards independence. Young women’s views of their needs are highlighted. Evidence is drawn from the author’s and other relevant Australian and overseas research. The issues are examined within the context of general community trends and policy and practice implications are studied using Community Services Victoria as a case example.

A variety of social and economic factors are leading to young people in the general community living with their parents for longer periods of time. In contrast, young people subject to statutory orders, especially young women, are often being discharged from these orders - and thus isolated from adult guidance - shortly after they pass their mid-teens.

Assumptions about these young women’s needs - that they no longer require nor wish for support and are ready for complete independence at this early age - are challenged. The legal, organisational and practice constraints which reinforce these assumptions are analysed. The apparent contradiction arising from young women refusing services which they also say they require, is also discussed.

The author demonstrates that there is a need for a reconceptualisation of the issue. A new kind of partnership between workers and young women on statutory orders is needed and a policy and administrative framework which facilitates this. The implications of the findings for practice and policy - and especially the important contribution ttiat young women’s views can make to the development of social policy - are presented.