Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-14T03:12:08.161Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle is about self determination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Margaret Ah Kee  and
Clare Tilbury
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle has been the policy guiding the placement of indigenous children in most Australian child protection jurisdictions for around fifteen years. The Principle requires the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community representatives in decision making concerning indigenous children, and ensuring that alternative care placements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander careproviders.

Most Jurisdictions still have a significant number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children placed with non-indigenous careproviders, and community based Aboriginal and Islander child care agencies continue to express dissatisfaction about the nature and level of consultation which occurs when welfare departments are taking action to protect indigenous children.

This paper, which was presented at the IFCO conference in Melbourne in July 1999, examines why there has been such limited improvement in Child Placement Principle outcomes. Work undertaken in Queensland to address the over representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the child protection system will be outlined from both a departmental and community perspective. The paper argues that if strategies for addressing these issues are not located within a framework of self determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, then they will not work.

Type
Research Article
Information
Children Australia , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , 1999 , pp. 4 - 8
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Department of Families, Youth and Community Care (1997), Research report: Indigenous Children on Protective Orders in Queensland 1995, Brisbane.Google Scholar
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1997), Bringing them home: The Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, AGPS, Canberra.Google Scholar
Lock, J.A. (1997), The Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, New South Wales Law Reform Commission, Sydney.Google Scholar
Stevenson, O. (1989), Child abuse: Public policy and professional practice, Harvester Wheatsheaf, London.Google Scholar
Turner, P. (1997), ‘Public Policy in Indigenous Affairs - No Miraculous Solutions’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 3–11.Google Scholar