Academic literature on the topic 'Child welfare South Australia History'

Young people leaving care are arguably one of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in society. Compared to most young people, they face numerous barriers to accessing educational, employment and other developmental and transitional opportunities.Using information from interviews and a range of documents, this study compares the leaving care supports currently available in two Australian states, Victoria and New South Wales. Attention is drawn to the history of the leaving care debate in both states, the nature of the existing legislative and program supports for care leavers in each state, the key political and policy actors that have either helped or hindered the development of leaving care policies and services in each state, and the principal unmet needs of care leavers in each state.The findings suggest that NSW leads the way in terms of providing effective legislative and program supports to care leavers. The differences between Victoria and NSW are attributed to a number of factors including particularly the different relationships between the respective government bureaucracies and non-government child welfare sectors.

This article traces the history of child welfare in Australia, showing the ways in which policies and practices, deriving primarily from Britain, were adopted and adapted in a nation in which jurisdiction was split between colonies/states and further divided, within states, on the basis of race. It argues that child welfare has always been part of the nation-building project, central to national objectives when children could be constructed as future citizens, marginal, and more punitive, when they were more easily understood as threats to social stability. In this first part it examines the history of welfare provision for non-indigenous children in Australia from 1788 to 1939. The second part, to be published in a subsequent issue, will discuss post-war developments in services for non-indigenous children, indigenous child welfare services and the historiography of child welfare in Australia.

This article traces the history of child welfare in Australia, showing the ways in which policies and practices, deriving primarily from Britain, were adopted and adapted in a nation in which jurisdiction was split between colonies/states and further divided, within states, on the basis of race. It argues that child welfare has always been part of the nation-building project, central to national objectives when children could be constructed as future citizens, marginal, and more punitive, when they were more easily understood as threats to social stability. In this second part, it discusses post-war developments in services for non-indigenous children, and indigenous child welfare services. It concludes with a discussion of the historiography of child welfare in Australia arguing that because, to date, historical writing has concentrated on localised or specialist studies, child welfare professionals have limited access to an understanding of the history of the systems within which they work.

Since 2000, the New South Wales (NSW) Government in Australia has pursued major child welfare reforms. Responding to the ‘crisis in child protection’ and informed by a public health approach, key aims were to prevent child maltreatment and promote child welfare by ‘expanding and enhancing early intervention and family services’. This article critically reviews the aims, approach and main developments in NSW. The article argues that in several respects the reforms extended and enhanced early intervention and family services in cost-effective ways but suffered from implementation problems, limitations in service developments and major reform challenges which inhibited their scope and impacts. These limitations raise critical issues about the reform framework, resource constraints and ideological influences.

This paper investigates the demands on social work resources in the north east region of the Department For Family and Community Services in South Australia, and examines the attitudes of workers to the question of access. Twenty three social workers, working predominantly in Child and Family Teams, were interviewed. A two part questionnaire was devised. The initial data covered information relating to the frequency, duration and supervision of access visits. The second part of the questionnaire used a semi-structured, open-ended format in order to explore social workers' knowledge and values in respect to access. The results of these interviews are presented and the implications for policy and practice in relation to statutory social work are discussed.

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: “The cry of the children of the needy is bitter and heartrending, and any effort towards stilling it deserves the best support and encouragement of the community… every day it rises in despairing appeal for succour and relief.” So wrote a South African newspaper editor in the early 1900s. This “cry” was answered by the emergence of a fledgling child welfare movement in South Africa, largely under the impetus of private charities mimicking international trends – particularly those of the metropole. The 1913 Children’s Act codified child protection, whilst government policies such as child maintenance grants helped in targeting one of the key challenges of child welfare: (white) poverty. Progressively, state and welfare became ever more entwined, epitomised by the formation of the National Council of Child Welfare in 1924 and the Social Welfare Department of 1937. Whilst the state played a constructive role when the aims of child welfare organisations tallied with its own goals (such as eliminating white poverty) it took on a more malevolent form when child welfare organisations did not toe the party-line, by turning their attention from white children to black children in the late 1930s. The movement towards an apartheid state in 1948 saw the consolidation of de facto racial policies into de juro government legislation. This thesis explores the delicate balance between maintaining state support, whilst upholding the values of independent welfare, “irrespective of race or class, of politics or creed”. Despite asserting such inclusive sentiments, borrowed from international discourses, child welfare in South Africa could not be removed from its local socio-political context. The 1953 Bantu Education Act and the 1960 Children’s Act consolidated racial separation through the unequal allocation of state resources to black and white children. Despite the muted concerns of child welfare activists, apartheid discrimination towards African children increased as the century progressed, intensifying hostility and necessitating the agency of African youth towards the apartheid government culminating in the Soweto Uprising of 16 June 1976 and its aftermath. The key aim of this thesis is to illustrate that, while government involvement in welfare brought many benefits to the South African child welfare movement, it simultaneously created a dependence that would make child welfare organisations vulnerable to racialised party politics and bureaucracy in the twentieth century. This is evidenced in the divergence of child welfare along racial lines with white children receiving care similar to that in the Anglophone west, whilst African children were largely neglected. The unequal allocation of resources according to race served to consolidate white hegemony for generations of South Africans, as the “children of today make the nation of tomorrow”.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: “Die geween van die kinders in nood is hartverskeurend en bitter, en enige pogings om hierdie nood te verlig, verdien om deur die gemeenskap ondersteun en aangemoedig te word … elke dag is daar wanhopige krete tot hulp en verligting.” Só het ʼn Suid-Afrikaanse koerantredakteur in die vroeë twintigste eeu geskryf. Die “geween” is beantwoord deur die ontstaan van ʼn kinderwelsynsbeweging in Suid-Afrika. Hierdie beweging is grootliks ondersteun deur private welsynsbewegings wat internasionale tendense nagevolg het, in besonder dié van die metropool. Die 1913 Kinderwet het kinderbeskerming gedefinieer en regeringsbeleid soos onderhoudstoekennings het terselfdertyd gehelp om een van die grootste probleme in kinderwelsyn, naamlik (wit) armoede aan te spreek. Die staat en kinderwelsyn het toenemend met mekaar verweef geraak wat uiteindelik gelei het tot die stigting van die Nasionale Raad van Kinderwelsyn in 1924 en die Department van Maatskaplike Welsyns in 1937. Die regering het ʼn konstruktiewe rol gespeel wanneer kinderwelsyn organisasies se doelwette met die van die regering (soos om wit armoede uit te wis) gesinkroniseer het. In gevalle waar die organisasies regeringsbelied uigedag het soos in die geval van die verskuiwing van die fokus van hul aktiwiteite in die 1930s na swart kinders het die regering se rol ‘n meer destruktiewe aard ontwikkel. Met die beweging na ʼn apartheid staat in 1948 was daar ʼn vereenselwiging van die de facto rassebeleid met die de jure regeringsbeleid. Hierdie tesis ondersoek die delikate balans tussen die behoud van regeringsondersteuning en die handhawing van die beleid van verkaffing van onafhanklike welsyn, “ongeag ras, klas, politieke oortuigings of geloof.” Ten spyte van die handhawing van hierdie inklusiewe benadering in navolging van internasionale diskoers, kon kinderwelsyn in Suid-Afrika nie sy plaaslike sosio-politieke konteks ontkom nie. Die 1953 Wet op Bantoe-Onderwys tesame met die 1960 Kinderwet het rasseskeiding verskans deur die oneweredige toekenning van regeringshulpbronne aan swart en blanke kinders. Ten spyte van kinderwelsyn-aktiviste se gedempte protes, het diskriminasie teenoor swart kinders deur die loop van die eeu toegeneem. Dit het wrewel jeens die regering verdiep wat weerstand onder die swart jeug aangemoedig het en uiteindelik in die Soweto opstande van 16 Junie 1976 gekulmineer het. Die hoofdoel van hierdie tesis is om te illustreer dat, alhoewel regeringsbetrokkenheid in welsyn vele voordele vir die Suid-Afrikaanse kinderwelsynsbeweging ingehou het, dit terselfdertyd ʼn soort afhanklikheid geskep het wat die kinderwelsynsorganisasies in die twintigste eeu kwesbaar gelaat het vir rasgebaseerde party politiek en burokrasie. Die kwesbaarheid word ten beste geillustreer deur die ontwikkeling van rasgebaseerde kinderwelsyn in terme waarvan wit kinders behandeling soortgelyk aan die van die Engelstalige weste ontvang het, terwyl swart kinders grootliks verwaarloos is. Die ongelyke toekenning van hulpbronne ten opsigte van ras het gelei tot die verstewiging van wit dominansie in Suid-Afrika vir talle generasies, aangesien “die kinders van vandag die nasie van môre is”.
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.

This thesis explores policy and service delivery for adolescent and young adult or ‘transition age’ mental health service users aged 16-25 across different jurisdictions in the UK and Australia. The study explores the implications that policy formulation and implementation have for service delivery in these different contextual settings; and examines how young people (who are at a vulnerable stage developmentally in terms of mental health), have their access to services affected by the existing policy framework. A policy analysis was conducted along with qualitative interviews in six case sites (three in the UK and three in Australia). The thesis adopted a critical realist approach using a laminated cross-sectional interview strategy that was developed to include interviews with national policy makers; local policy makers and service managers; staff working within services; and the young people whom were accessing services as the recipients of policy. Findings from this thesis explore how young people use risk escalation as a way of managing delays to treatment and how practitioners identify particular difficulties for young people transitioning in services when they are due to ‘step up’ into more acute services, or ‘step down’ to a less intensive service. The thesis explores the implications and unintended consequences for young people of policy including processes of ‘cost-shunting’ and ‘resource envy’ at local and national levels. Finally, the thesis offers some learning for systems working to support 16-25 year olds through demonstrating the importance of the dual role of ‘curing’ and ‘caring’ in mental health services.

The transformation of child and youth care ran concurrently with the political transformation in South Afriola. One of the projects aimed at establishing the transformation of child and youth care, was Project Go. This project placed a moratorium on the transfer of children 'deeper' into the child care system. It aimed at reunifying children ln residential care wtth their families. Furthermore, the projed assessed the children in the system with the aim of accommodating them in the least restrictive, most empowering child care facility. This narrative action research study focused on the effects of Project Go and the transformations on the children at the Children's Haven M T R Smit This study can also be described as emanciipatory action research. This qualitative study is positioned within a social construction discourse. Knowledge was socially constructed through multiple reflexive conversations. I researched the background to the transformation of the child and youth care system and investigated the implications of the transformation for the children at t.he Children's Haven M T R Smit,as well as for the child care workers and management of the haven. A narrative approach was employed. I relied on the Foucauldian discourse to come to some understanding of issues of power and resistance. Following Foucauldian thought, I investigated discourses constituting the care that the children at the Children's Haven M T R Smit received. This investigatlon led me to formulate some understanding of the history of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) the body responsible for the management of the haven since it was founded in the earty 1920s. 0nce I reached an understanding of some of the historical developments of the DRC (which l learned was closely linked lo Afrikaner politics), I explored some implications of the transformation for the DRC's future involvement with the children in its care. This exploration led me to a comparison of the theology of the DRC and black liberation theology, focusing on prophetic practice. Although not an initial aim of this study, I learned that the transfornation of child and youth care held implications not only for the pastoral practice of the DRC, but also for the helping professions such as psychology, social work and child care. l focused briefly on the ethics and some limitations of care provided by the profession of psychology. I reflected on the implications of the transformation of child and youth care for the helping professions.
Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology
D. Th. (Practical Theology (Pastoral Therapy))

AbstractThis concluding chapter explores why it was that post-war child migration to Australia was allowed to resume and continue by the UK Government despite known failings in these schemes. It is argued that one factor was the sheer administrative complexity of a multi-agency programme operating over different national jurisdictions and large distances which made control and oversight of conditions for British child migrants harder to achieve. Despite concerns that the post-war welfare state would be a powerful, centralised mechanism, the history of these programmes demonstrates British policy-makers’ sense of the limits of their powers—limits arising from lack of resource, the perceived need to avoid unproductive conflict with powerful stakeholders, the wish to respect boundaries of departmental policy remits and assumptions about the value of following policy precedents. The chapter concludes by considering how fine-grained analyses of such policy failures can contribute to public debates about suitable redress.

This chapter explores the world-wide movement at the turn of the 20^th century towards specialist juvenile courts to deal with children who commit offences. Following the lead of the juvenile court movement in the USA and Australia, the Children Act 1908 set up juvenile courts in both Scotland and England, though in Scotland these courts quickly acquired jurisdiction over both young offenders and children in need of care and protection. Originally little more than a separate set of procedural rules to be followed in the sheriff court dealing with children, an effort was made in the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Acts 1932 and 1937 to give better effect to the idea of a separate court presided over by specialist judges. Though never nation-wide, these new, enhanced, juvenile courts took on many of the characteristics that were later adopted by the children’s hearing system, including the processes to be followed, the involvement of the children, the requirement to look at the child’s wider environmental circumstances (including the child’s welfare), and the outcomes available to the court.