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With growing concerns about the efficacy and costs of intrusive child protection interventions and increasing recognition of citizen rights to participation in governance, jurisdictions are looking to collaborative alternatives that divert families from the courts and out‐of‐home care. In Queensland (Australia), "intervention with parental agreement" (IPA) is one such response. Under IPA, the statutory child protection authority can work collaboratively with families, without a court order, to respond to children assessed as "in need of protection." In this paper, we use procedural justice theory as a lens to explore how IPA policy is enacted in practice. Procedural justice relates to the quality of treatment a person receives and the fairness of the process than an authority uses during decision‐making (Tyler,). It is associated with voluntary cooperation and compliance; key practice concerns when working to address child maltreatment via parental agreement rather than court ordered intervention. We report on a qualitative study that utilized semistructured, in‐depth interviews to capture the perceptions of 30 practitioners regarding the factors that shape the extent to which they enact IPA policy in a procedurally fair manner. Strategies for enhancing procedurally just enactment of IPA policy in practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child protection authorities in many countries are concerned with reducing the rates of investigations and with diverting at‐risk families from the child protection service system. In several countries, differential responses have been introduced into child protection law providing service providers with some choice between investigative or family support pathways, depending upon the level of risk posed in the circumstance. In this paper, we report on a study into a form of differential response known as Intervention with Parents' Agreement introduced in Queensland, Australia, in 2005. A unique feature of this differential response is that it occurs after an initial child protection investigation, although it does provide child protection services with options for providing supportive interventions to at‐risk families to prevent the further escalation of concerns. In this paper, we analyse practitioners' perceptions of factors that inhibit and promote implementation of the Intervention with Parents' Agreement. Drawing upon interviews with 25 practitioners, we identify factors that become important for securing participation after an initial investigation has occurred. We discuss the implications for the development of differential responses in child protection service systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child protection systems within Anglophone countries have been increasingly dominated by neoliberal managerial, risk-dominant paradigms over the past three decades. Assumed to deliver a cost-effective strategy to increase the safety of children, there are many ways this paradigmatic combination systematically undermines child welfare, participation, and well-being. This paper specifically focuses on the ways that risk assessment, neoliberal, and managerial discourses have infiltrated practice and operate to silence and exclude children's voices. It draws on two case studies to showcase key findings of a comprehensive, state-wide research project called Empowering Children's Voices, which was initiated by UnitingCare, a non-government organisation within Queensland, Australia, and conducted in partnership with researchers from Queensland University of Technology. It will be argued that a paradigm shift towards a critically reflective reinterpretation of risk can be far more effective at promoting child-inclusive practice and establishing children's empowered voices as a protective factor against harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few child protection managers come to their roles with the management knowledge, skills and training to prepare them for the challenge of frontline child protection management. Without ongoing developmental support, it is likely that many will struggle, a number will leave their organisations, and critical child protection outcomes, such as increased child safety and wellbeing, will not be achieved. This paper reports on a 10-month mentoring programme provided as part of a larger research project focused on promoting outcome-focused management in statutory child protection area offices in Queensland, Australia. The 14 mentoring participants reported significant benefits of mentoring, with many experiencing fundamental shifts in their management approach. The research has important implications for social work education in terms of better providing for the educational needs of child protection managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Professionals in many contexts confront situations where children have been harmed or are at risk of harm. These include health, mental health, disability, and education, as well as a complex array of child and family welfare services. This paper focuses on the perspectives of workers within four child and family welfare service types: statutory child protection, domestic violence, family support, and intensive family support. As part of a broader study on participatory decision-making, 21 practitioners from two sites in Queensland, Australia, discussed their assessment and proposed intervention in relation to a vignette description of a family situation involving chronic neglect, substance abuse and domestic violence. This discussion was conducted in the context of an in-depth interview with each practitioner. Practitioners from all service types identified this as a high-risk case, and generally nominated similar environmental, parent-related and child-related issues. Further, their proposed response comprised a constellation of actions incorporating assessment of harm to the children, engaging family support services, attending to the needs of parents, and building a relationship with the parents. This commonality is of particular interest, given the complexity of the child and family welfare sector and the different roles played by different organisations. Building on these findings, we consider implications for the development of sector-wide approaches to risk assessment and for training of child protection professionals across a range of agency types. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Child protection workers are key players in the statutory system for the protection of children and young people. For this reason, their perceptions of the operation of the system are important. This study, conducted in Queensland, Australia, explored the views of child protection workers regarding foster carers and the foster care system. The present study revealed the difficulties the child protection workers encountered in engaging with foster carers. These difficulties were due to the structure of the child protection system and the conflicts experienced by workers in balancing the needs of children and young people, their primary clients and the carers of those children and young people. Several recommendations for policy and practice are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rights law is in its infancy in Australia. Some states and territories have human rights legislation that requires government officials to take human rights into account in decision-making. However, there is very little Australian case law or commentary regarding the application of human rights law to child protection matters. In this article, we discuss the potential for human rights law to influence decision-making in child protection. We interviewed lawyers and social workers who support parents in child protection matters in the state of Queensland to determine whether they thought rights-based advocacy could bring about better outcomes for their clients. Whilst some social workers were optimistic about the potential for human rights advocacy to improve outcomes for parents, lawyers generally believed that human rights law was unlikely to assist. Jurisprudence from other jurisdictions demonstrates that human rights arguments can influence outcomes in child protection matters, so additional human rights training may be needed for lawyers and judicial officers in Australia to encourage consideration of human rights in child protection cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Three peak organisations in Queensland, Australia partnered with consumers and other health and social sector partners to co-design and pilot the first known integrated, health navigation model to improve outcomes for children and young people in care in Australia. Description: An Organisational Learning theoretical lens has been used to present a narrative case study of findings structured as key learnings from the Navigate Your Health pilot to inform quality improvement, scalability and program sustainability. A developmental evaluation was completed whereby semi-structured interviews, focus groups, surveys, chart reviews, database excerpts and economic modelling was completed alongside project documentation analyses to create an evaluation framework. Discussion: Findings highlighted the agency partners' drive to foster a more integrated and person-centred approach to care. The pilot's aim of improving health outcomes for a vulnerable population were achieved through a co-designed process which provided additional insights regarding partnerships, improvement, scalability and sustainability. Conclusion: Inter-agency responses to system fragmentation provide significant organisational learning opportunities. System integration is achievable through strengthened partnerships that can be sustained beyond a pilot phase to improve health outcomes for vulnerable/priority populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Australian Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Australian Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There is a growing body of research about the current forms of electronic information systems (IS) being used in human service organisations in both the UK and Australia, which demonstrates that, far from being a positive development, their implementation can impede service delivery. These problems have been acknowledged in the recent review of child protection services in England by Professor Eileen Munro and attention is now shifting to how current IS may be modified and future IS designed. In this article, 'technologies-in-practice', as a conceptual approach to understanding the interactions between practitioners and IS, is applied to the findings of research that focused on how practitioners in a child protection agency used a set of decision-making tools (Structured Decision Making) embedded in an IS. The aim is to demonstrate how this approach might be used to contribute to an evidence base that might guide the future development of IS in ways that enhance the abilities of practitioners, particularly by focusing attention on their needs rather than organisational imperatives for compliance and accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous Australian children are significantly over-represented in out of home care. Figures evidencing this over-representation continue to increase at a startling rate. Similar experiences have been identified among native peoples in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. Drawing on interviews with lawyers who work with Indigenous parents in child protection matters in Queensland, Australia, this article examines how historical factors, discriminatory approaches and legal structures and processes contribute to the high rates of removal and, we argue, to the perpetuation of the stolen generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Victims' responses to violent experiences within intimate relationships are highly diverse and can range from remaining silent, at least temporarily, to disclosing the abuse to informal and formal sources of support. Decisions to remain silent or to reach out for support are influenced by a complex range of factors, including situational circumstances, such as the presence of children. Using data from in-depth interviews with victims of IPV ( N = 29) in Southeast Queensland, Australia, I examined victims' responses to IPV when children are present in the abusive household. Victims, who accessed general formal support sources, including the criminal justice systems and Child Protection Services (CPS), frequently faced stereotypical and victim-blaming attitudes along with a lack of understanding of the dynamics of IPV and the circumstances surrounding victims' help-seeking decisions. The presence of children in abuse relationships complicated victims' help-seeking decisions because fear of harm and loss of custody often delayed or hindered the disclosure of IPV to formal support sources. Once disclosing the abuse victims often found themselves trapped between CPS expectations to protect their children by leaving the abusive partner and a reluctance on behalf of judges and magistrates to offer the necessary protection by including children on granted Domestic Violence Orders (DVO). These findings highlight the ongoing need for specialized training of CPS personnel, judges and magistrates along with an ongoing collaboration with the women's sector to ensure the safety of victims and their children throughout the help-seeking process and to improve victims' confidence in disclosing IPV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]