The social policy of Australia considers the protection of children and the quality of their lives a central concern. In accordance with the existing legislation, all individuals belonging to this category have the right to receive loving care, support, and services they need to succeed in their lives (“Protecting children is everyone’s business,” 2009). Overall, the proposed policy is associated with improving existing monitoring, discovery, investigation, and management practices pertaining to child abuse and mistreatment within the Australian context. The initiative of the policy is to change the way Australian child protection agencies approach the issue of abuse. The aim of the policy is the introduction of a public health model and specific secondary interventions. The target audience is expected to include children-victims of abuse, their parents, alleged perpetrators of abuse, legislators, health care providers, and government stakeholders. At the moment, the policy is still on the stage of implementation since it continues encountering issues such as the ineffective monitoring of abuse cases, the lack of attention to Indigenous communities, the inadequate program management, and insufficient funding.
The need for a policy is evidenced by the fact that about 55,120 reports of child abuse and neglect are acquired annually (AIFS, 2018). Additionally, 168,352 Australian children were provided with child protection services in 2016-2017 (AIHW, n.d.).
Numerous government and non-government organizations are responsible for the protection of children and young people. They investigate specific cases regarding the existing social policy and provide support to individuals who needed it. In 2016-2017 the overall expenditure on child protection comprised about $4,3 billion (AIHW, 2018). However, there are still numerous problematic issues that demand further improvement of the approach to ensure better protection.
In order to ensure that the project addresses the problem from several perspectives, both quantitative and qualitative data will be used. From the quantitative perspective, the project will target the measurement of the number of investigated cases, the number of resolved cases, statistics on children out of homes as well on children on a protection order. From the qualitative perspective, the project will approach the issue of child support through discovering key themes and problems that characterize child neglect.
There are several central aspects underpinning the contemporary approach to child protection and its reformation. The first one is the need for increased investment to include more counseling services to children on a long-term basis in order to ensure greater focus on the antedescents of child abuse. In accordance with the relevant statistics, 74% of all children who were provided with specific protection services were repeat clients (AIFS, 2017a). Moreover, children from low-income or poor families face a significantly higher risk of abuse and neglect, which turns them into a vulnerable group (AIFS, 2008). When it comes to this recommendation, it should be mentioned that non-profit organizations that provide counseling services to children are inadequately funded. Since repeated sessions require the payment that the government does not currently provide, increased investment will ensure the minimization of the level of threat and cases of abuse in families that have already experienced similar problems (AIHW, 2018). It can help to improve the situation in the sphere.
The second key issue is the improvement of monitoring mechanisms to identify potentially problematic families or environments. Prevention and prophylactic work are two integral components of the existing social policy aimed at the protection of children’s rights (AIHW, 2018). However, these two directions demand the introduction and further development of assessment and monitoring mechanisms to evaluate the situation in families and conclude the probability of child abuse. Effective monitoring can include the introduction of child maltreatment surveillance systems (Meinck et al., 2015). Such systems will combine data from social services records, health records, self-repots, sentinel studies, complete agency records, and death records. Also, to contribute to effective monitoring, community members will be encouraged to report cases of child mistreatment that they have witnessed.
The third fundamental issue underpinning Australian social policy regarding children’s protection is to refrain from restricting the issue of child abuse to only governmental institutions. 2 of 3 children who have experienced different types of abuse or neglect become victims again (AIHW, 2018). Moreover, statistics show that the provision of support and needed child protection services is not associated with the complete elimination of the factor causing the problem and resulting in the deterioration of childrens state and quality of their lives (AIHW, 2017). In such a way, one of the central tasks of the existing social policy which significantly impacts its development is the introduction of measures that will help to reduce the number of re-abuse cases by revealing and solving a problematic issue that promoted the emergence of an acceptable situation. This direction remains fundamental for social services, governmental and non-governmental agencies.
The last problem is associated with restricting the problem of child abuse to only governmental organizations, the large majority of which ignores the problem’s occurrence within the Indigenous communities of Australia. In accordance with the statistics, about 32,600 individuals belonging to this category had been in out-of-home care for 2 or more years (AIHW, 2017). This fact constitutes a significant problem for agencies responsible for protecting children as the lack of care increases the risk of facing additional types of abuse and contributes to the overall deterioration of the situation. In such a way, the contemporary child protection is focused on the elimination of this problem by trying to use community resources to monitor cases of this sort and provide children deprived of care with the needed social protection. Additionally, in 2016-2017 indigenous children were seven times more likely to have received child protection services if compare with non-indigenous ones (AIHW, 2018). It constitutes a significant problem.
Altogether, despite numerous attempts to monitor the latest alterations in the sphere of child protection, the existing social policy might still be improved to ensure improved outcomes and guarantee reduction in abuse rates. Regarding the aspects underpinning the functioning of the approach, there are four recommendations that can be suggested.
Recommendation 1
Increase funding to include more counseling services, over a longer length of time. This will ensure more focus on the antecedents of child abuse. As has already been stated, the problem of child abuse is complicated by numerous cases of repeated neglect. To a greater degree, it comes from a lack of understanding among members of vulnerable families. In such a way, a significant increase in investments devoted to counseling services will help to investigate reasons preconditioning the emergence of inappropriate or abusive behavioral patterns and increase the level of awareness related to the problem of child protection (Wise, 2017). Additionally, eliminating the antecedents of undesired actions, agencies will be able to improve their prophylactic and prevention strategies aimed at the significant reduction in situations that might trigger the emergence of conflict situations.
Recommendation 2
Identify and work with “at-risk” families to a greater degree. This prevention strategy will mean the statistics are likely to improve. Governmental and non-governmental agencies admit that there is a set of factors that can be considered indicators of at-risk families. These include a low level of income, tensed relations between family members, social misconduct, divorce, and substances abuse (AIHW, 2018). The use of these factors can be considered an appropriate measure to introduce better identification and monitoring practices along with the prevention strategies. Additionally, improved work with at-risk families guarantees a reduction in the number of children deprived of home care which remains one of the central tasks of the existing social policy. In such a way, it should be considered an appropriate option for the improvement of child protection.
Recommendation 3
Provide financial help for diverse organizations to contribute to abuse prevention strategies. By doing so, children from Indigenous populations will also be included in the statistics of child abuse cases. Suggestion of this method to multiple organizations will result in the emergence of new ways to monitor the state of the problem and assist children who need child protection services. Additionally, engaging diverse organizations in abuse-prevention strategies will overcome barriers that enable exclusion, secrecy, and denial pertaining to the issues of Indigenous Australians (“Yarn up,” 2018). The appearance of new actors will help to increase the coverage and assess childrens needs more efficiently. Additionally, the functioning of multiple agencies, both governmental and non-governmental ones can be considered a warranty of the further evolution of the sphere because of their contribution to its rise.
Recommendations 4
Focus on the whole-of-community response. If the initiative changes its central direction, underrepresented groups and cases will be given more attention. As it has already been mentioned, the use of community resources is one of the methods to improve the efficiency of child protection. In this regard, promoting the necessity of assisting children who need support, agencies can achieve a significant improvement of the situation. Moreover, the problem of children in out-of-home care can be solved by collecting reports about its cases from community members. Finally, at-risk families and other vulnerable groups will also be given more attention due to the enhanced community response.
References
AIFS. (2008). Fertility and family policy in Australia. Web.
AIFS. (2017a). Child abuse and neglect statistics. Web.
AIFS. (2017b). Risk and protective factors for child abuse and neglect. Web.
AIFS. (2018). Australian child protection legislation. Web.
AIHW. (2017). Child protection Australia 2015–16. Web.
AIHW. (2018).Child protection Australia 2016–17. Web.
AIHW. (n.d.). Child protection. Web.
Meinck, F., Steinert, J., Sethi, D., Gilbert, R., Bellis, M., Mikton, C., … Baban, A. (2015). Measuring and monitoring national prevalence of child maltreatment: A practical handbook.Web.
Protecting children is everyone’s business. (2009). Web.
Wise, D. (2017). Developments to strengthen systems for child protection across Australia. Web.
Yarn up. (2018). Web.