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Abstract Young people with complex support needs who live outside metropolitan areas face unique challenges. Issues such as poor educational and employment opportunities, homelessness, racism, problematic substance use, challenging behaviour, disability and mental illness can be magnified and lead to judgment and marginalisation in small communities such as those in rural and regional areas. As a result of poor resourcing of services in these areas, young people may be forced to transition from place to place, service to service as a way of coping with life challenges. This paper presents findings from interviews and focus groups with service providers who support such young people in regional and rural Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. Service providers reported similar challenges to professionals working in urban areas, such as navigating inter-agency and inter-professional work and dealing with funding shortages. However, these issues were amplified by the need to work across broad geographical areas, to recruit and retain skilled workers and to respond to the many structural and resource inadequacies in smaller communities. While services aimed to be responsive to young people, the challenges of providing support in a non-metropolitan context could create a context in which young people either disengaged from services or poor response resulted in systemic escalation to crisis. The implications for policy and practice are explored. Highlights • Supports to young people with complex support needs in non-metropolitan areas in Australia are poorly resourced. • Non-metropolitan services work best when they are based on relationship-based practice and local community needs. • Interagency collaboration is essential when working across broad geographical areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to highlight how commonalities and differences between Australian children, parents and practitioners in terms of how they understand child resilience could inform the design and delivery of initiatives that aim to promote child resilience. A qualitative analysis of data from focus groups with children (n = 44), parents (n = 42) and practitioners (n = 107) undertaken in six Australian states and territories found key differences between the three groups in terms of: what they think resilience looks like in a child; and the factors that influence child resilience. The analysis also found a common agreement about the importance of supportive relationships to children's resilience. The findings suggest that initiatives that aim to promote child resilience may be more engaging and useful to children and parents if they: educate parents about the factors that influence child resilience; communicate the aims of resilience interventions to parents and children; focus on building supportive relationships for children; and explore community attitudes towards risk-taking. Highlights • Children and parents understand child resilience in different ways to practitioners • Compared to practitioners, parents and children are more likely to view children's resilience as an individual trait • Educating parents about the nature of resilience may increase support for initiatives that target children's environments [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Despite the increasing use of adoption to provide permanence for children living in out-of-home care, relatively little is known about the children involved. This paper presents findings on the previous life experiences of an entire cohort of 'difficult to place' adoptees who were placed in Australia over 26 years. Understanding the vulnerability of these children is important for practitioners supporting adoptive families, as well as policy-makers and researchers who are assessing the outcomes of adoption from care. The study describes a group of children who have experiences which may make them vulnerable to poor adult outcomes. The severity of their pre-care experiences is high, with implications for health and wellbeing difficulties in adulthood. Child welfare interventions after entry to out-of-home care are also associated with poor outcomes. Furthermore, a high number of adoptees presented with behavioural difficulties which further compromised their welfare. The study demonstrates that, while adoptive families can be successfully recruited for highly vulnerable children, there are important issues for timing of decision-making about permanency and for recruitment, training and support of adoptive families. Furthermore, policy makers and practitioners need to consider these vulnerabilities when comparing adoption with other forms of out-of-home care and assessing outcomes of adoption compared to the general community or fostered children. Highlights • A full cohort study of 'hard to place' adoptees from care over 26 years. • Adoptees are shown to have higher rates of 'significant' ACEs than the general population. • This vulnerability has been increased following child welfare interventions. • Significant implications for practice and assessing outcomes of adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people who live in residential care are at greater risk of experiencing sexual abuse and other forms of abuse than those living in other out of home care placements. To better understand how young people perceive and experience safety in residential care, and the things that they most need to be and feel safe, a qualitative study was conducted with 27 Australian children and young people for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This paper describes young people's perspectives on what makes residential care safe: supportive relationships, stability and predictability, fair rules, and having some control over their environment. Young people said that safety could be improved with: better appreciation of the risks in residential care; better matching, staffing and oversight; and better-designed responses that involve young people themselves. The findings provide critical insights from young people themselves and argue that adults and institutions need to appreciate their views of safety so as to adequately respond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationally, there is growing interest in the adoption of alternative responses that divert families, when safe to do so, away from the courts and out-of-home care system. However, it is widely recognised that the crisis-driven nature of statutory child protection in conjunction with the dominance of risk-adverse practice can inhibit practitioners' abilities to implement such interventions. In Queensland (Australia), 'intervention with parental agreement' (IPA) is an alternative response that allows the statutory child protection authority to work with families without a court order. Drawing on the perspectives of 30 practitioners recruited from the statutory child protection authority and tertiary non-government family support services, this paper explores the local factors that shape how IPA policy is implemented in practice. In particular, the paper considers the mechanisms that the leadership team within a statutory child protection office can use to shape a local practice culture that supports and is conducive to collaborative IPA practice. • Local practice context and culture contributes to inter-site variations in the implementation of parental agreements • Attitudes towards the nature and scope of non-government tertiary family preservation services in parental agreement cases vary • Branch office leaders from the child protection authority play a key role in creating local practice cultures towards the parental agreements • The attitudes and preferred practice approaches of those in leadership positions have implications for if and how parental agreements are used • When branch office leaders support family preservation, local practice cultures can challenge the dominance of risk-adverse practice [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]