The Children Youth
and Families Act 2005 provides the legislative basis for the
provision of services to vulnerable children, young people and
their families. The new legislation places children's best
interests at the heart of all decision making and service
delivery
The key concepts
described within the legislation are:
-
'Child's best interests' is
paramount
-
Cumulative patterns of harm as a
best interests principle and a basis for Child Protection
Report
-
Single entry points into integrated
networks of services.
-
Targeting to the most vulnerable by
prioritising service on the basis on needs.
-
Development of Child FIRST intake and
response teams that enables the receiving of referrals about
significant concerns for a child's wellbeing (Including
without family knowledge or consent)
-
Sharing information without consent
with specified professionals about children with significant
wellbeing concerns for purposes of risk assessment or determining
appropriate services.
-
Consultation with Child Protection by
Child FIRST and family service agencies (with or without family
consent).
-
Recording disclosures relating to
consultations or significant wellbeing concerns
-
Protection of referrer
identity
-
Family Service agency registration and
standards
Taken together,
these changes initiate for Family Services a mode of working with
families that is 'neither fully voluntary, nor fully coercive'
(Allen Consulting Group in the report Child Protection Outcomes
(2003)). This 'intermediate space' was argued by Allen Consulting
as a means to increase the 'regulatory responsiveness' of
government in the face of adverse child development outcomes and
introduce more flexible, community oriented responses rather than
the 'blunt' interventions of Child Protection notifications,
investigations, placements and Court Orders.
Such intermediate
responses are required to manage the increasingly adverse outcomes
for children growing up in families where harm cumulated across
childhood in the face of very real disadvantage from sources such
as poverty, chronic neglect, drug and alcohol abuse; mental
illness, disability, or family violence.
Vulnerable families
such as these were the target group for the earlier Family
Support Innovations Projects (FSIP). The ongoing FSIP
and new Child FIRST initiatives (now known as Integrated Family
Services) are aimed at redressing imbalances in the way the
service system responds to vulnerable children, especially multiple
notified families who are often recycled within the service system
with little effective change for children and young
people.
Identified service
approaches are to include ongoing support, active engagement and
multi- disciplinary responses, accessed and coordinated through
central intake points and associated coordinated allocation,
services delivery and planning. Establishing such a responsive
service system and meeting the needs of these families are key
objectives for Child FIRST and the NCVFS Alliance.
The challenge for
the NCVFS Alliance is how to best utilise these new powers while
adhering to traditional practice strengths and values of
voluntaryservice.
In considerations
regarding the use of these legislative powers, high regard should
be paid to the following central principles for Family Service
delivery:
-
Belief in a family's own motivation
and capacity to make change
-
Belief in a family's expertise in
their own lives and experiences.
-
Providing choice and
information as key factors to empowering and engaging
families
-
Openness with families about the need
to act and establish limits when child safety and development
cannot be ensured, even when parents do not agree
