SACOSS welcomed the opportunity to engage with the Department for Child Protection’s review of the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017 (the Act) and its Discussion Paper – Building the South Australian Child Protection System for the Future, and to contribute towards rethinking how we can collectively ensure that children and families can live their best lives.
Our submission responds to the Minister for Child Protection’s invitation to engage in ‘a radical rethink on how governments and communities can collectively keep children safe’, and her call for us to be ‘bold and immensely innovative’ in working towards ‘transformational change’.
The submission emphasises the point made in the Discussion Paper that for children ‘to be safe, cared for and loved’, there is a need for ‘families, communities, the whole of the childcare sector and all of government to work together’ and that we need to focus on the range of ‘interconnected and complex issues’ facing children and families (Discussion Paper 2022 p. 3). This submission has amplified the essential collaborative role and active efforts of families, communities and the inter-connected functions of government and non-government agencies in order to improve the lives of children and families who are experiencing challenges. Nothing short of a comprehensive, structural and holistic response will make a genuine difference to the current system, which is failing children and families.
Central to effecting any change in the lives of children and families who are facing challenges, is the need to address the persistent structural factors that undermine child and family wellbeing and cause children to be unsafe – these include poverty, insecure housing, poor physical and mental health, incarceration, and educational outcomes, amongst others. While we continue to fail to address these structural determinants, we will continue to fail children and their families.