Dr James Herbert is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Child Protection, University of South Australia. Dr Herbert has recently completed a three-year fellowship looking at cross-agency responses to severe child abuse. This work has focused on the potential benefits of more integrated responses to abuse for children and families.

Professor Leah Bromfield is one of Australia's foremost child protection researchers and is Co-Director at the Australian Centre for Child Protection. Professor Bromfield is a well-regarded research expert in issues affecting child protection systems. She was also Professorial Fellow to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. She has worked closely with state, national and international governments on establishing and implementing child welfare reforms, including the National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children.

The authors would like to thank Parkerville Children and Youth Care Inc. for providing salary support for Dr Herbert's Post-Doctoral Fellowship. The authors would also like to acknowledge the support of the NSW Ombudsman for their assistance with undertaking the national comparison, and thank all of the state/territory agencies that commented on the information summaries provided to them; and Debbie Scott and Will Douglas for their feedback and input into the paper.

Featured image: © istockphoto/artolympic