Experts gather in Adelaide to improve Child Protection in South Australia

350 people attended the Beginning Together: South Australian Child Protection and Family Support Symposium 2023 in Adelaide last Wednesday, seeking to improve outcomes for children through reshaping the child protection and family support system.

The inaugural symposium hopes to transform the way South Australia responds to and empowers children in need, with input from symposium attendees helping to shape a 20-year vision to improve outcomes for children through transforming South Australia’s child protection and family support system.

“One in three South Australian children have contact with the child protection and family support system. I am sure that most South Australians would agree that this is a shocking fact that represents an urgent call to action to help ensure improved outcomes for vulnerable children, young people and their families,” said SA Minister for Child Protection Katrine Hildyard. 

“To begin to improve children’s and young people’s lives, we need to bring together the community, government and the sector to drive meaningful change to our child protection and family support system.”

“This symposium, the first of its kind in South Australia, does so. It provides a crucial opportunity to listen to, and act on, the voices, the insights, and the strength of people who have the knowledge and experience to help us build the system of our future.”

Young people, carers, families, Aboriginal leaders and those working in child and family-related health and community services across the state were all in attendance, discussing their aspirations for children and the child protection and family support system.

“There are incredible people right across the child protection and family support system undertaking outstanding work with and for children and their families. As families face deeply complex and interconnected issues, need is growing. We need to begin together to contemplate how we can most effectively respond,” Ms Hildyard said. 

“Together, we can progress meaningful and positive change that makes a real difference in the lives of children and young people. I am determined that we use the opportunity the Symposium presents to help begin to do so.”

The SA Government intends to hold the symposium annually in coming years, working with the state’s Child Protection Expert Group, established following a recommendation in Ms Kate Alexander’s 2022 report which canvassed a range of recommendations for SA’s child protection and family support system.

The Expert Group is working alongside the Minister to develop a 20-year vision and design of a fit for purpose child protection and family support system that has children and improvements in their lives at its centre.

The vision will draw on a broad range of experiences and views and contemplate a transformed approach to child protection and family in SA.

This includes outcomes from the symposium, along with input from the No Capes for Change youth advisory group and the state’s recently announced Carer Council and Direct Experience Groups.

“After 20 years of best efforts to improve and reform the current child protection system, the evidence is clear – our system is not fit for purpose and we need a transformation agenda,” said Professor Leah Bromfield, Chair of the state’s Child Protection Expert Group.

“What’s different about this approach is that Minister Hildyard and the Expert Group will be inviting the state to consider how best to redesign the state’s child protection system – starting with a blank page.”

“The strength of this approach is that we can ‘put on the page’ our strengths and build on those things that are working well, and leave behind those things that are not.”

Image credit: Nathan Richmond, Richmond Visual