1. Advocacy: Disability & Child Protection
Barbara Carter
Kate Fitt
18 May 2017
These slides are copyright, the content is being further developed.

2. Overview of the Victorian Child Protection System
Children Youth and Families Act 2005 sets out the powers of DHHS (Secretary of the Department), the powers of the Children’s Court and the Principles under which the system should operate (S10)
The Child Protection Practice manual sets out the policies and principles adopted by Child Protection within its area of authority. Available online.
Victoria’s system has a child protection orientation, rather than family service orientation. (Similar to UK/USA, different from Western European model). Mandatory reporting by professionals applies.
Best interests based. Child can be removed from home if they have suffered harm or are likely to suffer harm (physical, emotional, sexual). High focus on risk factors.
Approx. 100,000 reports made to CP each year, 25% are investigated, 60% of those investigated are substantiated by DHHS. 7% cases overall go to Court. 7,710 children in OOHC in 2013/14.
Indigenous children 9-12 times more likely to be in OOHC.
Estimate parents with disabilities 10 times more likely to have their children removed
Overview of the Victorian Child Protection System

3. Assumption that a diagnosis of disability equates to lack of capacity to raise your children. Ignorance of, or dismissal of, research showing that most parents with disabilities are capable if provided with the proper supports.
Pressure applied to parents to show that they are capable of navigating the system independently. Power imbalance is extreme without advocacy assistance.
Too much assessment, not enough support. Lack of services for parents with disabilities. Lack of concern about fear, trauma and grief experienced by families.
Inadequate attention to the consequences of separating families (parents, siblings, extended family) and to deficiencies of the OOHC system.
Too little meaningful contact between families with children in OOHC
Dismissal of human rights concerns – CRC, CRPD, Victorian Charter.
The issues and concerns around child protection for parents with disabilities  

4. Impact of recent amendments to the CYFA. (enacted 1 March 2016)
Court’s powers are extremely limited after a child has been out of their parent’s care for 12 months or 24 months in exceptional circumstances. Prevents the Court acting in the individual best interests of a child.
Removes the power of the Court to determine contact arrangements when a child has been out of a parent’s care for two years or more.
Enables children to spend most of their childhood on long-term care orders without regular independent oversight of the Court.
We are seeing babies move from hospital to permanent care.
Places top priority on permanency (of legal arrangements rather than on stability and consistency of care).
Removes guardianship from the parents as soon as child is removed, even when plan is to reunify.
Impact of recent amendments to the CYFA. (enacted 1 March 2016)

5. Helping families to speak up
To help families/parents speak up we need to act:
Earlier
Holistically
Assertively
Helping families to speak up

6. Families need help to act earlier
Once children have entered the out-of-home system it is harder to:
Find supports that help the family
Find supports that adjust to the needs of the parent with disability
Prevent escalation and spread of ‘group think’
Prevent case movement further into the system
Prove your case
Gather evidence to put before the Court
Ensure lawyers and judges hear the other side of the story
Families need help to act earlier

7. Holistic advocacy: The power relationships encountered
Chaotic & Confusing systems

8. Holistic advocacy: a multi-level & multi-layered response
People encountered
Potential problems encountered by families
strategies
Hospital and health staff (including Maternal & Child Health; PASDs)
Confirmation bias,
Ineffective communication,
NCAST norms and adaption,
Way of thinking: generally medical model
Promote positive narrative,
Ask about teaching technique
Child Protection (statutory)
&
Child Support system (voluntary)
Cautionary,
Unconscious bias,
Underfunded – the system is moving to a forensic only service,
Rhetoric – best interest of the child,
Fear of media,
Inexperience, lack of knowledge of practical strategies,
Case note recording - style, what is noticed and amount,
Assumptions that signs of parent trauma are standard behaviours for the parent
Ways of thinking: varied, risk management, medical model, legal framework, criminology, social model
Always ask about:
‘the least level of intervention required to keep child safe’,
‘what do you expect to be seeing for the child to come home?’
Gain express consent,
Go higher,
Know review of CP decision process,
Help family create chart of issues and supports to have an equal voice
Holistic advocacy: a multi-level & multi-layered response

9. Holistic advocacy: a multi-level & multi-layered response
People encountered
Potential problems encountered by families
strategies
Specialist assessment staff – psychologists/social workers/psychiatrists
Group think, unconscious bias, cost, access, timelines
Way of thinking: depends on specialist discipline and personality
Promote the positive
Share positive or parent’s charts where possible
Lawyers
Perception of client,
Finding legal representation and duty lawyers,
Giving instruction, responding to disability,
Way of thinking: varied, legal framework
Help collect evidence, including photos,
Diary systems – eg memos on the phone,
Know of model litigant guidelines, s10 of CYAF Act 2005, human rights principles,
Help families to understand lawyer’s and judge’s role
Police
Unconscious bias, inexperience, group think,
Way of thinking: criminology, legal framework
Independent third person
Holistic advocacy: a multi-level & multi-layered response

10. Some strategies to help families
Remember:
There is a difference between assertive and aggressive.
There is a difference between supporting and colluding.
Some parents with intellectual disability have difficulty separating a smiling face (friendly) of workers from their actions (spectrum of genuine to disingenuous)
Some strategies to help families

11. Some strategies to help families
Encourage parents to become the case managers of their own lives (it’s a mindset enhanced with skills and tools).
The internal, ‘Request for a review of a child protection decision’ – (28 days).
Assist families to complete their chart and to use it as a tool to focus during meetings: what are CP saying, what’s your view, what’s the evidence?
Create chart of services involved or supports available to family (be prepared to defend the parents’ right to support without discrimination)
Understand evidence – parents’ words mean nothing if they can’t ‘back it up’.
Some strategies to help families

12. Some strategies to help families
Help the family tell their story (narrative approach) with a chart (risk management approach); issue, perspective, evidence
Ensure parents’ charts are ed to the lawyer or families have copies to give to the lawyer (helps with the instruction process)
Understand trauma and how this impacts on family presentation; especially during meetings or contact with professionals
Encourage families to defend themselves with actions rather than words; understand the problem, collect evidence, demonstrate competence.
Find statistics, find research, find positives, find help
Non-compliance with workers, not child abuse, is more likely to be associated with child removal. (See work of David McConnell)
Some strategies to help families