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The role that social support and social networks play in mediating isolation and stress experienced by vulnerable families is well established. However, a major issue facing supportive human services is to find and engage families with limited social networks and link them to supports that could improve outcomes for their families. This paper reports on the results of in‐depth interviews with 20 sole parents with children aged under 5 who were not well connected to services. It documents their social networks with the use of a social network map. Using a social capital lens, the analysis attempts to differentiate the different relationships in the participants' lives. Most participants were not satisfied with their informal networks, with conflicted or ambivalent reliance on family, absence of support and community engagement and fragility of informal networks. Although this group of isolated mothers does encounter the formal service system, the opportunities to increase and strengthen their networks do not eventuate. Better understanding of the nature and extent of social networks can inform practitioners and policy‐makers of the critical factors needed to increase service use for parents with limited resources.

The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) commissioned the Institute of Child Protection Studies (ICPS) to carry out an evaluation of the Supporting Children After Separation Program (SCASP) and Post Separation Cooperative Parenting service (PSCP). In addition to providing evaluation of the programs themselves, it is hoped that this study will also make a contribution to more broadly based evaluation of FaHCSIA’s Family Support Program (FSP), under whose umbrella these services fall. The evaluation aimed to ascertain the appropriateness and effectiveness of service models and the extent to which they achieve their intended objectives. It also assessed the extent to which the programs give priority to at risk, vulnerable and disadvantaged families and how they generally increase family access to services through more collaborative service arrangements. In general terms, it attempted to establish whether and how these service models are consistent with, and contribute to, the overarching goals and principles of the FSP.

So ubiquitous is reference to collaboration in policy documents that it is in danger of being ignored altogether by service deliverers who are not clear about its rationale, how it is built, or its real value. This is evident in the child and family services context where for example the National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children calls for collaboration and a ‘shared responsibility’ across the state, Commonwealth and the non-government sectors to keep children safe and well. This article describes a project undertaken to analyse and ultimately increase levels of collaboration between state and Commonwealth government family service providers. The research reinforced an important message that levels of collaboration should align with the vulnerability of children and their families: the greater the level of risks to children, the greater the level of collaboration needed within and between systems to keep children safe.

A survey of those working in Australian statutory child protection authorities was undertaken by the Australian Catholic University as part of a larger project at the Australian National University: Community Capacity Building in Child Protection (http://ccb.anu.edu.au). The purpose of the project is to explore new ways for supporting families and young people so that they can develop the skills, confidence and resources they need to flourish without continuing intervention from the state. Child protection authorities are expected and do intervene when they have reason to believe children are unsafe or neglected. Too often, however, the outcome is that these families stay in the system instead of developing capacity to move on with their lives free of state intervention. The survey described in this paper represents one part of the project: the views of those who work at the heart of the system in statutory child protection agencies. The survey was funded through an Australian Research Council Linkage grant (LP0669230).

The social context for both young people and motherhood is changing and there is a clear need to identify the experiences and needs of younger mothers (aged under 25 years at the birth of their first child) to inform the development of policy and service responses. The current discourse on younger mothers tends to problematise this group, and is partially based on quantitative research evidence which highlights the adverse health and socio-economic outcomes that are associated with 'early' childbearing. Qualitative research which explores the views and perspectives of younger mothers on early pregnancy and childbearing is important for understanding their experiences and how they think about their future...

The project objectives are to: collect information about the experiences of disadvantaged families with children, in relation to help-seeking behaviour and the use of, and access to, relevant support services; and contribute to the development of a strong evidence base to underpin and inform policy development in relation to Commonwealth-funded family services programs. The research questions are: How do families who are in receipt of income support identify their needs? What formal and informal supports do parents currently draw on? What are their experiences of accessing and utilising formal support services?

The high number of young children reported and re-reported to statutory authorities throughout Australia calls into question the effectiveness of contemporary risk focused frameworks for guiding interventions with young children, particularly in relation to cumulative concerns associated with neglect and emotional harm. We argue that the siloed nature of institutions and the risk frameworks which have underpinned child protection practice for two decades have not been effective in shaping collaborative, early responses to many children who would benefit from greater access to services at the primary and secondary levels of intervention. A conceptual model for strengthening the interface between these levels is proposed which uses supportive linking and assertive outreach as important interventions to develop “systems of care” for very vulnerable families. Improving this interface requires greater understanding across all service levels of the need for collaborative systems of care to improve parenting ‘capability’ and ‘connectedness’.

This literature review addresses four key questions: - What is a disaster? - What are the effects of disasters? - What is recovery? - What are the key messages for successful disaster recovery? The disaster recovery literature of the past five years is the primary focus of the review. The review canvasses contemporary definitions of disasters which generally conclude that it is the situation created by major events rather than the event itself, and especially the social, economic, developmental and political consequences of events which is the key defining aspect of disasters. A disaster exceeds the capacity of the ‘community’ to respond and requires a coordinated response by the State and other entities to help the community recover. Disasters are also events which are shared by a group of people who develop an identity that together they have been affected by major catastrophe...

This paper explores workforce planning issues and opportunities for the care and protection system. The paper reports three main bodies of work: a literature review both of generic workforce planning principles, frameworks and issues across sectors, and of the more limited literature on the care and protection sector, in order to establish the main direction workforce planning could take in the ACT care and protection system. consultations with some government and non government organisations in NSW and ACT on the subject of workforce planning to inform an analysis of key workforce issues for the ACT care and protection system. selection of a methodology which is recommended for mapping the current care and protection workforce in the ACT.

This thesis seeks to understand how government service delivery agencies can develop more individualised solutions for citizens through new kinds of relationships or ‘social partnerships’ across sectors. Specifically it examines how Centrelink, the Australian Government’s largest service delivery agency is working across other government, the not-for—profit and business sectors to reduce social exclusion and to increase participation opportunities for people on income support.