Principle Focus brings accountability, transparency in monitoring over-representation

Our greatest challenge and contemporary injustice is the disproportionate representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in statutory child protection systems across Australia.  

This over-representation is a pervasive feature of child protection systems in all jurisdictions, and it is growing. 

Despite Queensland’s commitment to Our Way, a generational strategy to eliminate over-representation, and the Closing the Gap Target 12, more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people are in the Queensland child protection system than ever before. 

The QFCC’s Principle Focus program monitors and examines the dynamics and drivers of this over-representation in Queensland’s child protection system. The program isn’t just about identifying challenges; it is also an opportunity to identify promising practices and provide a platform to encourage exceptional examples to become the norm.

The QFCC has long supported the need to increase transparency and the accessibility of data relating to over-representation. Improving access to localised data, and incorporating the insights and perspectives of those working on the ground with families in each region, aims to create visibility, greater accountability and a more nuanced understanding about what is working well and what requires action. 

As part of this program, the QFCC is proud to launch an online, interactive dashboard to increase accountability and transparency in how over-representation is monitored.

The new dashboard involves an in-depth, rights-based analysis of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle’s (ATSICPP)* implementation across child protection systems in Queensland, and it presents 2022–23 state and regional over-representation data. It highlights the increasing over-representation in Queensland and the inconsistent interpretation and application of the ATSICPP.

This dashboard will help build a shared understanding, in local contexts, about the dynamics and drivers of over-representation and about what can and must be done collectively to improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families.

The Principle Focus dashboard presents statewide and regional data about over-representation. Each region has a ‘story behind the data’ that identifies the key barriers to reducing over-representation, highlights promising practices, and gives localised context to the data. 

Principle Focus aligns with the Productivity Commission’s recommendations in its review of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, specifically around strengthening accountability.

The QFCC is committed to pursuing matters raised by this year’s Principle Focus, including: 

• advocating for a moratorium on adverse action by the Department of Housing while a child is subject to formal child protection intervention
• further examining First Nations children on Long-Term Guardianship orders to First Nations kin, non-Indigenous kin carers and foster carers to ensure self-determination is at the heart of all decisions and determine if a ‘family restoration’ measure is appropriate
• seeking a change in commissioning (funding) practices to support self-determination at a local level and ensure funding meets community demand 
• driving system-wide reforms identified by the Productivity Commission review across universal, secondary, and tertiary systems 
• ensuring the Queensland Government implements the recommendations from our analysis of the Blue Card Scheme on kinship carers.

We aim to update the dashboard data quarterly, with the continued support of the Department of Child Safety, Seniors and Disability Services, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations. This will enable communities and partners to track progress towards eliminating over-representation and advocate for the continued implementation of the ATSICPP and COAG Priority Reforms, in the interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families.

The Principle Focus dashboard is available to view on the QFCC website. 

* The ATSICPP is the legislated framework in Queensland that guides Child Safety policy and practice decisions for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

BACKGROUND 

The QFCC released Principle Focus: A child-rights approach to systemic accountability for the safety and wellbeing of Queensland’s First Nations children in August 2021, which monitors and examines the dynamics and drivers of the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in Queensland’s child protection system. 

Principle Focus emphasises that reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care will require:

• exits to exceed entries  
• a reduction in the duration of time children spend in care  
• a short-term focus on reunification to increase exits from out-of-home care  
• a long-term focus on reunification to reduce duration of time in out-of-home care.  

ENDS

For media information contact:

Kirstine O’Donnell | Queensland Family and Child Commission

Phone:  0404 971 164

Email:   media@qfcc.qld.gov.au