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Refereed/Peer-reviewed Family reunification is an area of high policy importance for child protection systems. The safe return of children from out-of-home care to their biological parents or relatives and long-term family preservation can potentially mitigate the subsequent detrimental effects of separating children from their families. In this paper we describe one type of family for whom reunification was considered; namely, families who have been affected by intergenerational trauma. To assist families affected by intergenerational trauma and abuse requires an understanding of the mechanisms and processes that maintain intergenerational trauma and how these might inform therapeutic approaches for working with children and their families. This paper utilises case studies to illustrate the use of the Adult Exploration of Attachment Interview (AEAI) as part of a broader therapeutic reunification program in an Australian state. The AEAI focuses on supporting parents to become aware of the impact of previous experiences in their childhood; the mitigation of feelings of shame, self-blame, and inadequacy by helping the parent confront the negative experiences of the past. The aim is to assist the parent to recognise the significance of the past, to consolidate their strengths, and to develop more nurturing relationships with their children. Case illustrations demonstrate that this therapy was a component in addressing the causes of behaviour and psychological distress that had been barriers to reunification from care in two families. This was achieved through a process of reflection and self-awareness, rather than one focused on guilt or shame, with the therapist there to help verbalise and articulate what otherwise might have been hidden or implicit processes. In both cases, this awareness was used to help reframe the parent-child relationship and led to observable behavioural changes in parenting practices.

Understanding the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has rapidly emerged as an important area of research that has implications for those who work in youth justice settings. This paper identifies a series of considerations facing those who work in jurisdictions where Indigenous or First Nations peoples have much higher levels of contact with both child protection and criminal justice systems than other population groups. It presents some reflections from members of a non-Indigenous research team about their efforts to engage with cultural perspectives on ACEs research in a way that facilitates further discussion within the research community about the methodological decisions that are made when investigating issues that are of importance to members of minority culture communities.

ObjectiveWe described development, health and justice system outcomes for children in contact with child protection and public housing.DesignDescriptive analysis of outcomes for children known to child protection who also had contact with public housing drawn from the South Australian (SA) Better Evidence Better Outcomes Linked Data (BEBOLD) platform.SettingThe BEBOLD platform holds linked administrative records collected by government agencies for whole-population successive birth cohorts in South Australia beginning in 1999.ParticipantsThis study included data from birth registrations, perinatal, child protection, public housing, hospital, emergency department, early education, and youth justice for all SA children born 1999-2013 and followed until 2016. The base population notified at least once to child protection was n=67,454.Primary outcome measureContact with the public housing system.Secondary outcome measureshospitalisations and emergency department presentations before age 5, and early education at age 5, and youth justice contact before age 17.ResultsMore than 60% of children with at least one notification to child protection had contact with public housing, and 60.2% of those known to both systems were known to housing first. Children known to both systems experienced more emergency department and hospitalisation contacts, greater developmental vulnerability and were about 6 times more likely to have youth justice system contact.ConclusionsThere is substantial overlap between involvement with child protection and public housing in SA. Those children are more likely to face a life trajectory characterised by greater contact with the health system, greater early life developmental vulnerability, and greater contact with the criminal justice system. Ensuring the highest quality of supportive early life infrastructure for families in public housing may contribute to prevention of contact with child protection and better life trajectories for children.Strengths and limitations of this studyThis descriptive study provides epidemiological insight into the largely unexplored intersection between child protection and housing systems using whole-of-population linked administrative dataThe findings of this study are based on data drawn from South Australia and may not be directly generalizable to other locations because of different administrative systemsDespite data being drawn from one Australian jurisdiction, the qualitative relationship between child protection and housing is likely to be similar

Adolescents in out-of-home care generally have poor prospects for reunification with their birth families. However, for some adolescents in care, with deliberate support and intervention, there may opportunities for successful reunification. The Adolescent Reunification Program (ARP) is an Australian program designed to assist young people aged 12–17 years return home to their families. The program focuses on supporting families, mentoring young people so as to meet their developmental and educational needs, and providing a safe home environment. It also included an innovative therapeutic component which focused on addressing the consequences of intergenerational trauma in order to help repair relationships between parents and children. The purpose of this paper is to describe the therapeutic component of the program and to examine the potential value of therapy in a family reunification context with a particular focus on client receptivity and preliminary evidence on outcomes. Using case illustrations, this paper describes the therapeutic component of the ARP and provides a preliminary evaluation of these components using a mixed methods approach, including standardised psychological assessments, qualitative interviews with parents and young people, and reflections from the program workers. The therapeutic component of the ARP may have helped to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma by bringing focus to the interrelationships between how people feel and how they act. This was done through the work of therapists attempting to combine non-judgmental exploration and positive therapeutic framing with practical support within the context of the environment where the family reunification occurred. Therapy in conjunction with practical supports within a multidisciplinary collaborative approach may help to facilitate better outcomes for reunification when working with complex families.

Background Numerous studies have demonstrated a strong link between child maltreatment and subsequent youth offending, leading to calls for early intervention initiatives. However, there have been few whole-population studies into the dimensions of statutory child maltreatment responses that can inform these programs. The aim of this study was to investigate the sex-specific association between level and timing of child protection system (CPS) contact and youth offending. Methods This retrospective cohort study used linked individual-level records from multiple agencies, for 10,438Aboriginal children born in the Northern Territory between 1999 and 2006. The outcome measure was the first alleged offence. Key explanatory variables were level (no contact through to out-of-home care) and timing (0–4 years, 5–9 years, or both) of CPS contact. The Kaplan–Meier method was used to estimate cumulative incidence and a flexible parametric survival model to estimate hazard ratios (HR). Results Children with no record of CPS contact before age 10 had the lowest cumulative incidence of first alleged offence by age 18 (boys: 23.4% [95%CI:21.0–26.1]; girls: 6.6% [95%CI:5.3–8.2]) and those with a record of out-of-home care the highest CI (boys: 45.5% [95%CI:37.0–54.9]; girls: 18.6% [95%CI:13.0–26.2]). The association of CPS contact with the relative risk of a first alleged offence was greatest for children aged 10–13 years and decreased with age. Timing of CPS contact was also associated with increasing cumulative incidence. The relative risk for first alleged offence was generally higher for children with CPS contact, of any type, during both developmental phases including notifications during both phases (boys, HR at age 11: 8.9 [95%CI:4.2–17.2]; girls, HR at age 11: 13.7 [95%CI:3.8–48.9]) and substantiations during both phases (boys, HR at age 11: 17.0 [95%CI:9.6–30.0]; girls, HR at age 11: 54.1 [95%CI:18.1–162]). Conclusion The increased risk of offending associated with level and timing of early CPS contact highlights opportunities for a differentiated public health response to improve life trajectories for children and to reduce youth crime. Although children with unsubstantiated notifications of maltreatment do not meet the criteria for a statutory CPS response, the higher risk of offending among these children supports their inclusion in targeted preventive interventions.

Objective This study investigated the extent to which violent offending in a population of young people detained in secure care facilities is related to variations in child maltreatment after controlling for other known individual and social correlates of crime. Method Official child protection and youth justice records and survey information for 1819 young people were analyzed. Measures included: maltreatment factors (including type, timing and recurrence); out-of-home care placement factors (including type, age at first placement, stability and duration of placements); social factors (including family and peer risk indicators); and individual factors (including factors relating to intelligence and education, substance use, mental health problems, and behavior). Gender and cultural background were also investigated as potential moderating factors. Logistic regression was used to determine the independent effect of maltreatment factors on violent convictions in the presence of other risk factors. Results Persistent maltreatment was a consistent predictor of violent convictions. Other independent predictors included: aggression, anger, Indigenous status, and male gender, with household conflict also approaching significance. Conclusion Collaborative and integrated responses from both child protection and juvenile justice may be needed if comprehensive violence prevention strategies are to be developed for young offenders.

A significant international child protection issue is the gradual increase in the number of children in statutory out-of-home care (OOHC). This has led to strong policy interest in family reunification or family restoration; however, dedicated reunification programs that aim to reunify children who have been in care longer-term appear to be rare. In this paper, we describe the development, piloting and evaluation of a dedicated, intensive program for adolescents in long-term OOHC and their families of origin – the Adolescent Reunification Program (ARP). The ARP evaluation involved a mixed methods approach through the compilation of both quantitative data (the number and characteristics of families referred, and their outcomes) and qualitative interviews with participating families and ARP workers. Of the 36 participating families, two-thirds (66%) achieved successful reunification, with young people remaining at home for at least six months. Thematic content analysis of interview data provided insight into the factors that facilitated, or acted as barriers to, reunification. Overall, the evaluation indicated that strengths-focused, adolescent reunification programs have considerable potential to reduce the number of young people who remain in long-term care. Inspection of both national and international evidence suggests that by providing a dedicated, intensive reunification service for adolescents on long-term orders, the ARP is a very rare program that has few parallels anywhere in the world.

Researchers and policymakers have called for a shift from incident-driven statutory child protection responses to greater investment in coordinated system-wide child and family focused approaches to preventing child maltreatment. However, system-wide capacity to prevent maltreatment is limited without an intelligent information infrastructure that is able to routinely examine child and family focused outcomes, and overall system performance to increase our understanding of what works. The purpose of this article is to investigate the current state of indicators for child protection, health, development and wellbeing, and to propose indicator domains that are needed for an intelligent information infrastructure in a prevention-focused child protection system. A non-systematic narrative review was undertaken to explore commonly used indicators. Examples are drawn from high-income countries with well-developed child protection agencies. Our analysis shows that process indicators that measure within-agency activities are most commonly used. Indicators that measure outcomes in children are less common, and even less common are indicators linking system processes to child and family outcomes. Capacity to understand the success of system-wide prevention of child maltreatment is limited by siloed data collection and information systems. Three information indicator domains need to be routinely collected and linked. First, within-agency processes (what activities occurred); second, warm handover (referrals between agencies) and therapeutic dose of interventions; and third, child and family wellbeing outcomes. An intelligent information infrastructure spanning these domains would increase capacity to understand whole-of-system efforts to prevent child maltreatment.

There is now convincing evidence that childhood maltreatment is associated with youth offending; however, relatively little is known about the characteristics and needs of those who are involved in both the child protection and youth justice systems, and the extent to which these might differ according to level of child protection involvement. This study reports the characteristics and needs of 2,045 young people who were under supervision in secure custody or detention in South Australia between 1995 and 2012 according to the level of exposure to the child protection system in an Australian jurisdiction. Five groups of young offenders were compared: (a) no known child protection notifications or substantiated experience of abuse and/or neglect, (b) notifications only, (c) substantiated notifications, (d) notifications or substantiations and subsequent placement in out-of-home care (OHC), and (e) placement in OHC only. The results indicate that young people who have a history of child protection system involvement have significantly greater and more complex needs than those who have no child protection experience. It is concluded that different service responses may be required to meet the diverse needs of these groups of young people under youth justice supervision.

A number of previous studies have shown that out-of-home care (OHC) placement experiences can influence the pathway from maltreatment to offending, and that these pathways may differ depending on gender and ethnic backgrounds. Even though Australian welfare and justice systems are unique in terms of the over-representation of Indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) young people, there have been few Australian longitudinal studies that explore the role of placement experiences in examinations of the maltreatment-offending association. The present study uses linked child protection and youth justice data for 17,671 young people and aims to provide insight into the way ethnicity, as well as gender, moderates the association between maltreatment, placement in OHC and youth convictions. The data were analyzed using logistic regression and the findings varied systematically depending on the type of conviction examined. There was some strong evidence that gender, ethnicity and placement factors moderated the relationship between maltreatment and convictions in general, and for violent convictions more specifically. Interaction effects revealed that placement experiences were more consequential for female than for male youth, but less consequential for Indigenous than for non-Indigenous youth. A one-size-fits-all approach to understanding, treating and preventing the consequences of child maltreatment could not be considered the most appropriate best practice given the gender- and ethnic-specific pathways found in this study. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

There is convincing evidence that many young people who are in the justice system have had contact with child protection services and that victims of childhood maltreatment are at increased risk of subsequent youth justice involvement. In Australia, however, there have been few longitudinal studies that have examined these associations and relatively less is known in this area. This study examines the overlap between the child protection and youth justice involvement in South Australia, and determines how substantiated maltreatment and variations in these experiences (e.g., the type, timing and recurrence of maltreatment) relate to criminal convictions as a youth. The results show that although the majority of child-protection involved youth do not become convicted offenders, the odds of subsequent convictions are significantly greater both for those with notifications and substantiated maltreatment and for those who had been placed in out-of-home care. Multivariate analyses revealed that the strongest predictors for receiving a conviction among maltreated youth were: male gender, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ethnicity, experiences of physical abuse and emotional abuse, a greater number of substantiations (recurrence), experiencing maltreatment that commenced in childhood and continued into adolescence, and placement in out-of-home care. The mechanisms through which maltreatment might be linked with behavior are then considered, along with directions for future research in this area. Refereed/Peer-reviewed