In a previous paper, (Tomison 1996), it was contended that Australian State and Territory child protection systems had begun to follow the international trend of shifting the balance between the ‘forensic’ investigation of suspected child maltreatment to one where a greater emphasis was placed on family support and the promotion of a ‘needs’ approach to the management of suspected child maltreatment cases.

In this paper the intention is to discuss how this ‘shift’ towards family support has been realised in the Australian context and to briefly discuss some of the significant changes to child protection case management and child abuse prevention that have eventuated since 1996.

In 1996, much of the impetus for change in Australian and other Commonwealth countries’ child protection systems came from the United Kingdom, where an Audit Commission report (1994) and a research program implemented by the Department of Health and coordinated by the Dartington Social Research Unit, University of Bristol (Messages from Research report), had produced a substantial amount of evidence about definitions of maltreatment, what happens to children and families caught up in the child protection system, and case outcomes. As a result, policy makers in the United Kingdom began to consider shifting the balance between child protection and other services for children in need.

Statutory child protection services in the United Kingdom, like the various Australian State/Territory child protection services, were struggling to cope with ever-increasing numbers of reports of suspected child maltreatment and it was clear that a substantial proportion of the reports were inappropriately labelled as allegations of child maltreatment by those who refer cases to child protection services. Often such cases involved families who were not maltreating their child but had more generic problems, such as financial or housing difficulties, an incapacitated caregiver, or serious stress problems. Such families may have needed assistance but did not require child protection intervention. Their labelling as cases of child abuse or neglect further taxed generally limited child protection resources.

It should be noted that the research impacted on child protection policy at a time when western democratic governments had been in a period of welfare ‘downsizing’ or rationalisation for some time.

Since the mid-70s in Australia, in association with the rise of economic rationalist approaches, policy has been to halt the increase in government expenditure on welfare and steps taken to make welfare more efficient, implementing market principles where possible and encouraging the self reliance of individuals and families (Burbidge 1998).

In the 1990s policy changes consistent with economic rationalist philosophies have led to the introduction of user pays service provision, compulsory competitive tendering and the contracting out of many aspects of health and welfare services), the privatisation of services, and the separation of funding from the provision of services. As Parton notes ‘the attempts to re-balance child protection and family support are thus intimately related to new ways of targeting scarce resources’ (1997:10).

Under the proposed ‘family support’ approach, child protection cases are no longer seen in purely child protection terms but in the overall context in which the alleged abuse has occurred, informed by a comprehensive assessment of the family (i.e. adoption of an ecological assessment framework [Belsky, 1980]). Thus, the balance between child protection and the role of family support is altered such that child protection no longer drives the system but becomes merely one important facet in an overall welfare assessment. Good practice and adequate protection thus both emerge from adopting a wider perspective on child protection by means of which underlying problems in the family that may put a child ‘at risk’ or have a detrimental effect on the child’s long-term welfare are addressed.

The overall intention of the new approach is to prevent maltreatment and protect children by addressing family problems holistically. This is to be done in a way which promotes cooperation between workers and families, achieving greater levels of parental cooperation and, subsequently, a better outcome for children and families. The benefits of such a system are that, ideally, families are not unduly stigmatised or traumatised by inappropriate or unnecessary protective investigations, and are therefore more likely to accept assistance. In addition, family problems can be comprehensively assessed and appropriate services put in place to address them. Such an approach can help prevent the development of maltreating behaviour, or ameliorate conditions detrimental to a child’s long-term development.

Thus, the underlying theme of Messages from Research: was that there was a need for the greater provision of family support and preventative action to avoid families requiring child protection investigation and/or intervention.

‘The crux of any child protection system would [therefore] appear to be the adequate resourcing of family support services such that families in need can receive appropriate counselling or support in a cooperative venture with welfare professionals. Without adequate resources, no system can expect to adequately protect children or enhance family welfare’ (Tomison 1996:3).

A number of specific facets of child protection case practice were identified in the various research studies carried out in the United Kingdom.

‘Solution focused’ and ‘child centred, family focused’ strategies were recommended as a cornerstone of good practice. ‘Child centred, family focused’ work affirms the primary importance of ensuring the safety and wellbeing of children; yet also recognises the mutual significance of the child and family to each other; and promotes the importance of service professionals developing a strengths-based partnership with client families.

A ‘solution-focused’ approach to practice is based on the development of an effective collaborative relationship with children and their families (De Jong & Miller 1995). The underlying tenet of this perspective is that all families have strengths and capabilities. If practitioners take the time to identify these qualities and build on them, and attempt to develop a true collaborative partnership between family members and themselves, rather than focusing on the correction of skills deficits or weaknesses, families are more likely to respond favourably to interventions and thus the likelihood of making a positive impact on the family unit is considerably enhanced (Dunst, Trivette & Deal 1988).

However, it should also be noted that there is a need to ensure that a balance is maintained between child-focused and parent-focused issues such that child development issues are not overshadowed in attempts to deal with parent and family problems (Powell 1997). For example, there is some research evidence which suggests that improvements in child outcomes cannot be achieved when relatively little attention is paid to child development issues (Travers, Nauta & Irwin 1982, as cited in Powell 1997). Moreover, some researchers and practitioners have raised concerns that the new models may not adequately protect children, because they focus too much on the family as a whole rather than being primarily concerned with the protection of the child (Tomison 1996).

The need for child protection services to engage with family support and other non-government services in meaningful case management partnerships was strongly recommended. Ensuring interagency (or interprofessional) cooperation and coordination has been a common theme in child abuse research for many year (Hallett & Birchall 1992). Poor cooperation has also been mentioned as a contributing factor in a number of child abuse death inquiries (e.g. Department of Health 1991).

However, whilst there would appear to be overall agreement that coordination in child protection is a necessary and valuable practice, it has been commonly reported as being difficult to achieve (e.g. Department of Health 1991, Hallett & Birchall 1992). Thus, Messages from Research reinforced the value of effective collaboration and promoted and confirmed the need to address child maltreatment issues via collaborative ventures.

A major theme of the ‘family support’ approach as advocated in Messages from Research was that there was a need to develop stricter thresholds for child protection intervention and service provision, such that only those families judged to be truly ‘in need’ (i.e. where there is evidence of ‘significant harm’) enter the system, were fully investigated and receive services. Such screening processes rely heavily on predictive risk assessment techniques. A ‘family support’ approach to child protection is therefore seen as being achieved via the better case management of those families deemed to be in need of investigation, case management and service provision.

‘Thresholds’, in a child protection context, can be defined as the points at which behaviour is defined as abusive, and the markers beyond which one response to child and family concerns is superseded by another characterised by greater intervention (e.g. the decision to accept a child abuse report, to conduct an investigation, to substantiate maltreatment) (Little 1997).

Messages from Research indicated that child protection systems in the U.K. could be characterised as filtering out the majority of allegations of child maltreatment they received; a conclusion equally applicable to Australian child protection services. It was also apparent that significant resources were utilised in the investigatory process, resources which could be better spent in the provision of support to families ‘in need’, given that a high proportion of reported cases were subsequently not substantiated as child maltreatment (Wattam 1997).

This conclusion led to the adoption of approaches, particularly risk assessment measures, which ‘tightened’ the criteria and practices surrounding the decision to investigate and subsequently, to offer services, to families. The intention was to ensure a better targeting of resources to those judged to be most ‘in need’ of assistance and/or statutory child protection intervention.

Thoburn, Brandon & Lewis note that the ‘more discriminating use of the formal child protection systems and the courts can result in a more cost-effective service to the most vulnerable children, who must continue to be given the highest priority. Such an approach will then free up resources to help more families at an earlier stage before the harm to the children has already been done’ (1997:190).

Risk assessment has several objectives: to help protective workers identify situations where children are at risk of maltreatment; to improve consistency in service delivery; and to help protective services determine the appropriate priorities within protective services caseloads (Browne & Saqi, 1988; English & Pecora, 1994). However, there is insufficient information currently available to determine the efficacy of risk assessment tools for identifying children at risk of serious maltreatment (Camasso & Jagannathan, 1995; Lyons et al., 1996; Dalgleish, 1997). Wald and Woolverton advocate caution when perceiving risk assessment as a panacea for an ailing child protection system.

They note that

‘. . . many agencies are adopting risk-assessment instruments in lieu of addressing fundamental problems in existing child protection systems, such as the excessive number of inexperienced or incompetent workers and the lack of adequate resources. In fact, the use of inadequately designed or researched instruments may result in poorer decisions, because workers will rely on mechanical rules and procedures instead of trying to develop greater clinical expertise’ (1990:484).

A variety of risk assessment measures have been adopted by the different Australian State/Territory child protection services. The most radical, such as the system adopted in South Australia, involve a series of brief checklists to not only determine levels of risk, but also to determine service allocation. It should be noted that workers may override the results of risk assessment measures, however, they must justify their decisions prior to taking action.

In extreme cases, child protection departments have placed more faith in brief risk assessment checklists than workers’ judgements. For example, the New Zealand Children, Young Persons and their Families Service (CYPFS) was reported to have adopted a risk assessment tool in 1996-97. Although initially allowing workers to override the checklist results if they disagreed with them (with appropriate justification), a policy decision was taken such that the checklist outcome would provide primary justification for the case decisions taken. That is, the checklist, not the worker’s recommendation, would generally be given greater weight when making case management decisions. It appeared that this policy resulted from court experiences where judges hearing child protection matters were more likely to support the results of the checklist than workers’ clinical judgement in cases where the workers had overridden the risk assessment outcome. The (mis)perception was that the measure was scientifically derived and thus provided an objective assessment of the case.

However, at a recent conference it was reported that the Service had subsequently modified its position, such that workers’ clinical judgements had regained primacy in case management decisions. A variety of checklists were now being used, which were described as ‘guides’ to inform workers’ decision making, rather than superseding it (Smith 1998). It is to be hoped that the current reliance on risk assessment tools by some Australian States will be reduced and proper attention paid to ensuring child protection staff are comprehensively trained to make informed, clinical decisions with/without decision aids.

In Australia most States and Territories have adopted methods of case streaming or screening such that the threshold for forensic investigation and intervention is raised. Western Australia has developed a model that classifies cases into either a generic ‘child concern report’ or ‘child maltreatment allegation’ stream, with all cases ideally undergoing full assessment and receiving supports where necessary. Each approach is tailored to the family’s problems.

In this model, only severe incidents of maltreatment are initially referred to the child protection team: for example, where an illegal act has been committed, where there is evidence of severe or persistent harm or where a significant history of child maltreatment in the family exists. The majority of cases are assessed as ‘child concern reports’, but regardless to which stream a case is assigned, appropriate services are meant to be provided. However, an interim evaluation of the approach indicated that the extra family support resources needed to ensure that ‘child concern’ cases received the assistance they needed were not forthcoming. The result was that many ‘at risk’ families did not receive the assistance they required.

In contrast, Victoria is moving to adopt a method of child protection practice where cases are not streamed, but which provides workers with much greater flexibility to respond to child abuse reports (that is, a differentiated response system, where the response made is able to be tailored to individual case requirements).

The Enhanced Client Outcomes approach aims to provide a system of responses to protective notifications (reports) which recognise the varying degrees of risk and diversity of needs within the client population by:

• Reaffirming the importance of risk assessment as the basis of decision making in child protection and the key to discriminating between different client needs, including high risk and urgency issues

• Providing access to a range of differential response options ensuring sensitive and flexible responses to the full range of presenting problems.

• Promoting interagency relationships that ensure maximum knowledge of local resources and networks and use of advanced collaborative practice

• Builds on the principles of child centred family focused practice to ensure that the principles of partnership, strengths, sensitivity and respect underpin all transactions with families and other professional service providers

ECO practice is based on:

• enhanced interagency practice between DHS and the family support/child welfare sector

• child centred, family focused practice principles - working in partnership with families, where possible, to ensure a better outcome.

In summary, both systems (Victoria and Western Australia) are designed to offer a more efficient, less traumatising response for families where there has been an allegation of child maltreatment, such that only those deemed likely to involve ‘significant harm’ of a child receive a full forensic investigation and protective intervention. While it is appropriate to improve child protection responses to child maltreatment allegations and to avoid causing unnecessary distress for families, the crux of the ‘family support’ approach remains the adequate provision of services to deal effectively with family needs.

If a narrow conceptualisation of the model is taken, limited child protection resources should be targeted only at those maltreating families with significant needs. Under such an approach it is assumed that ‘at risk’ and families with minimal maltreatment issues will be dealt with by the wider child welfare and family support sector as voluntary clients. Child protection resources are quarantined for those families with serious child maltreatment issues.

However, there has generally been a failure to provide adequate support to families who are ‘at risk’ or who have been identified as having relatively ‘minor’ issues of maltreatment. Certainly, Thoburn et al.’s contention that efficient child protection screening will free up resources for the ‘at risk’ population has yet to be achieved in Australia.

In 1997 the National Child Protection Clearing House undertook an audit of primary and secondary child abuse prevention activity in New South Wales for the NSW Child Protection Council (Tomison 1997b). In an assessment of 281 family support programs, 242 were identified as, in theory, providing services to ‘at risk’ families. However, the reality was that most of these agencies accepted both ‘at risk’ and maltreating clients. In most cases the majority of clients appeared to come from the tertiary sector, often referred by statutory child protection services.

This trend for family support services to accept clients from the tertiary sector resulted in a scarcity of resources being available for secondary prevention initiatives, such as early detection or preventative services for voluntary (non-statutory) clients, and/or those ‘at risk’ families who actively seek help prior to the development of abusive or neglectful concerns (Tomison 1996, Tomison & McGurk 1996). Lack of resources in the child welfare system appeared to have led to an erosion in secondary prevention, with resources moved to cope with the demand for services by tertiary clients.

However, there has been one Victorian initiative which is designed to address specifically the needs of ‘at risk’ families in order to prevent their entry into the child protection sector, and the economic and social costs associated with child maltreatment and the need for a protective response.

The Brimbank Family Outreach Service (BFOS), was located in the City of Brimbank, Western Metropolitan region of Melbourne, under the auspices of the Brimbank Community Health Service (Brimbank CHS). It was designed to provide support and advice to ‘at risk’ families who were not currently identified as abusive, and to reduce their problems in order to prevent their becoming child protection clients and the need for the provision of significant family support resources. Tasks included: assessing child and family needs, developing caseplans and ensuring appropriate services were put in place to address the family’s needs, where possible deflecting people from the secondary and tertiary service sectors through early identification, early intervention and timely treatment (Tomison, Burgell & Burgell 1998).

In order to engage effectively with families and to work collaboratively with the family and other agencies, BFOS case practice was centred on child centred family focused practice and effective interagency coordination, collaboration and communication. A cornerstone of the BFOS role, was to actively approach families in the role of ‘friendly visitor’ in order to engage with families and to assist them to resolve or reduce the issues or problems they were affecting their health and wellbeing.

In the 12 months in which BFOS was in operation, 157 children and their families from the City of Brimbank local government area were referred to the Service for assessment and caseplanning. The client families had identified concerns in relation to family functioning, parental discipline practices, childrearing practices, poverty and/or environmental neglect, rather than actual harm or abuse of the children.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies, in partnership with Burgell Consulting recently completed an evaluation of the project. Overall, it was concluded that the Service played a significant, highly constructive role in the assessment and case management of ‘at risk’ families who did not require statutory intervention. In the past, such families have often not received the treatment or support they required to deal with their issues and/or to prevent the occurrence of child abuse and neglect. BFOS was able to develop and provide effective support for these client families, decreasing the probability of the families becoming abusive, or entering the statutory child protection system.

In addition, the Service made a clear, positive impact on interagency communication and coordination throughout the local service network. The Service model is currently being implemented across Victoria, as the Strengthening Families initiative. Strengthening Families represents a clear example of a truly preventative approach which complements existing family support for maltreating families.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of family support services were (are) targeted to provide support for maltreating families. There is little provision for actual preventative work to assist families to address their needs prior to becoming abusive. It is contended that this is a major flaw in the family support-type models advocated in Messages from Research and implemented in the U.K. and Australian child protection sectors.

Interestingly, while the actual provision of services for ‘at risk’ and maltreating families has been weighted heavily towards the latter, there has been growing recognition that child protection departments, in isolation, cannot adequately protect children and a subsequent re-emphasis on the value of child abuse prevention.

Specifically, it has been recognised that the effective prevention of social ills like child maltreatment, requires a truly cross-sectoral approach, and the development of a ‘whole of community’ strategy, such that prevention of child abuse is a shared responsibility between various professional sectors and the community at large.

In general, (and as mentioned above) many of the actual prevention efforts currently initiated by governments relate to the development of self-sufficient, resilient families and communities who can maintain health and wellbeing without a strong reliance on welfare resources - a community development approach.

Taking a community development approach, client-empowering philosophies have been adopted in order to encourage families to proactively seek assistance prior to the development of serious family dysfunction. A relatively new development which has adopted this tenet are ‘Child and Family Centres’, frequently referred to as ‘one stop shops’. Child and Family Centres (Tomison 1997a, Tomison 1997b) are multi-service community centres which provide support to families on a number of dimensions. Available in parts of the United States, such centres have recently been developed in a variety of forms in Australia.

The Centres aim to provide a local, non-stigmatising family support service that encourages families to proactively seek assistance. While most child and family agencies support ‘at risk’ or maltreated children and their families, an objective of these centres is to promote child and family wellbeing rather than allow family problems to develop to the extent that the focus of Centre activity becomes secondary or tertiary prevention. Thus, the Centres endeavour to offer practical support (e.g. child care, self help groups, legal advice), in addition to traditional family support, with agency staff available to assist clients in clarifying their wants and needs.

Services typically offered include: mental health, child health, dental services, family support services (including parenting information and skills programs), women’s services, financial aid, legal advice and client advocacy. Drop-in centres, parenting and other self-help courses, social groups and other community activities are provided as a means of enabling those who are socially isolated to develop improved social networks. One approach to developing child and family centres which is currently receiving much praise is the Inter-Agency School Community Centres Pilot Project, operating in New South Wales.

In a cross-sectoral collaboration, the NSW Departments of School Education and Community Services and Health have worked together to fund a two-year pilot program to establish four interagency school community centres. Administered by the NSW Department of School Education and located at public schools, the aim of the program is to develop and trial models of interagency coordination, and to support families with children of five years and under with a view to preventing disadvantage at school entry.

The project objectives are to: encourage and support families in their parenting role; to identify needs, knowledge gaps and issues in the local community; to promote community involvement in the provision and coordination of services for children and families; and to promote the school as a community centre. Social Systems and Evaluation (1996) produced an interim evaluation report based on interviews with parents, community members, organisations involved in the local projects, school personnel and various management staff. It was concluded that there was a high level of community support for the continuation of the project, and a strong level of community involvement. Community representatives noted the positive impact of the local centres on the communities’ perceptions of themselves: ‘People have begun to feel good about their community and to take action to improve amenities.’ (Social Systems & Evaluation 1996:2). The New South Wales Government recently announced additional funding for the project.

With regard to community development approaches, a number of points should be made. First, while the overall aim may be to develop communities which are predominantly self-sufficient, such developments usually require adequate resourcing in the early stages (or years) of the project to enable subsequent expansion and finally, self-resourcing capacities. Second, the relationship between governments and the wider community and the involvement of the State in welfare provision has ebbed and flowed over the last 100 years (Burbidge 1998). However, community development approaches should not be perceived as a licence for governments to withdraw from the process of developing healthy communities entirely. Long-term change will only be achieved by government and community partnerships, acknowledging that there will be changes to the level of participation required to meet the needs of the community over time.

Finally, addressing social ills like child maltreatment involves not only the promotion of protective or resiliency factors, but actions which address and reduce individual, family and community risk factors. It is only by developing approaches which deal with the risk and protective factors that positive change is ensured.

In the next five years it is not unreasonable to expect that there will be greater acknowledgment of the value of developing interventions which are truly preventative in nature. It is likely that more programs will be developed which address the needs of the ‘at risk’ sections of the community and the community as a whole. This will occur in conjunction with further refinement of the child protection services’ response to alleged cases of child maltreatment.

It is to be hoped that the current over-reliance on risk assessment measures will have dissipated and the focus move to the provision of comprehensive training for child protection staff (that is, a recognition that decision making aids are best used as prompts for workers who have been adequately trained to identify and evaluate cases comprehensively).

Finally, it would be expected that policy makers will continue to focus on the development of healthy, self-sufficient communities. It remains to be seen if such community development is conducted in conjunction with efforts aimed at minimising the occurrence of the various identifiable risk factors currently affecting a sizeable proportion of Australian families. It is hoped that an holistic and ecological approach is employed in the prevention of child maltreatment such that investment is made in the provision of dedicated services for ‘at risk’ families, such as the Victorian Strengthening Families initiative, in combination with other ‘health promotion’/resiliency and risk prevention strategies operating across the spectrum of child abuse prevention. The forthcoming National Strategy currently being developed by the National Council for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect should provide the framework for preventative work by the Federal and State governments and the professional community for the next three years.

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