Improving the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable children
A consolidation of systemic recommendations and evidence
June 2024
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About this study
This study is a collaboration between the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) and the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). It was funded by The Ian Potter Foundation.
We analysed over 3,000 recommendations from 61 state, territory and Commonwealth reports and inquiries into child protection and youth justice between 2010 and 2022.
The study provides a national perspective on reforms to the child protection and youth justice systems in Australia. This consolidation of recommendations is important because it shows that there is a large and valuable existing evidence base that can be drawn on to guide effective reform. The full report is available on the AIFS website.
What did we find?
The existing evidence base suggests that investment in prevention and early intervention provides the best opportunities for change with this being the focus of just over 19%1 of the recommendations.
Around 1/5 of recommendations were focused on the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families. These families were the most frequently referenced and as an ‘at-risk’ cohort across the recommendations.
These recommendations highlighted the importance of culturally appropriate approaches that maintain connection with family, community, culture and Country.
Six key themes representing systems-level issues continued to appear across the reports and inquiries between 2010 and 2022, indicating where improvement is needed:
What do these findings tell us?
This study highlights that evidence-based responses in these 6 areas are urgently needed to address the needs of vulnerable children and young people.
The repetition of these themes suggests that there is a strong existing evidence base on how to best support vulnerable children and young people.
There is an urgent need for First Nations partnership and self-determination at all stages of the child protection and youth justice system.
1 Just over 50% of recommendations were focused on supporting children and young people already in the child protection and youth justice systems, and around 4% were focused on supporting children and young people to transition out of care or youth justice supervision. The remaining 27% of recommendations were focused on other topics outside of these systems.
