The state government has ordered an immediate review of out-of-home care services for children in NSW, following claims two boys were left hungry and too cold to go to school this year while their care provider sought thousands of dollars a day to look after them.

This volume covers a broad spectrum of current research findings concerning the participation of young people in foster families and residential living groups in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland as well as cross-nationals perspective on children and young people’s participation in foster and residential care placements in Great Britain and France.

This public event, presented by the Centre for Social Work Innovation and Research (CSWIR) at the University of Sussex in the UK and the Social Work Innovation Research Living Space (SWIRLS) at Flinders University in South Australia, will be an ‘in conversation with’ style event, where academics, and practitioners will discuss how practice has adapted to the heightened sense of uncertainty engendered by the pandemic in everyday child protection social work. The unique perspectives of social work practitioners and managers from Australian and UK practice contexts will be brought together in conversation with academic colleagues from SWIRLS and CSWIR.

This book examines the involvement of those with care experience in the criminal justice system in an Australian jurisdiction. The majority of children in care do not come into contact with the youth justice system. However, among children involved in the youth justice system, those with care experience are overrepresented. The authors focus on the process of colonialisation and criminalisation, rather than crime. 

South Australia’s first Aboriginal Children’s Commissioner has launched a year-long Royal Commission-like inquiry into the State Government’s removal of Aboriginal children.

South Australia's Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People has launched an inquiry into the high rates of Indigenous kids in state care.

Next Steps for Our Kids (Next Steps) sets out an ambitious reform agenda building on the positive outcomes seen through the implementation of the previous A Step Up for Our Kids Strategy (A Step Up) and addresses the continuing challenges seen in the child and youth protection system in Australia. Next Steps is an evolution of A Step Up and will see various original elements matured, extended and expanded.

Children placed in residential care are significantly over-represented in youth justice systems. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with service providers, this exploratory study examines practice factors that impact on the criminalization of this group of children across multiple services and systems, including in the residential care environment, police, lawyers, courts and youth justice systems, as well as multi-systems practice with this group in one Australian state.

Removal from family of origin to state care can be a highly challenging childhood experience and is itself linked to an array of unfavourable outcomes in adult life. This systematic review which included Canada, the US, western Europe, and Australia, aimed to synthetise evidence on the risk of adult mortality in people with a history of state care in early life, and assess the association according to different contexts. 

This paper presents a case study that discusses the lived experiences of two LGBTQA + young people who have been in out-of-home care in Australia, focusing particularly on the influence of relationships on their developing sexual identity.