Just work as a team: reconstructing family inclusion from parent, carer and practitioner perspectives: family inclusion research report

Family inclusion has been conceptualised in this study as “the active and meaningful participation of parents, family, kinship networks and communities in the lives of children. It is a process and lived experience over time that helps ensure children’s family relationships are not lost”. In the child protection and out-of-home care sector, participation often relates to the involvement of parents and families in processes such as case planning, decision making, day-to-day relational activities with children and their direct care. An increasingly robust evidence base links parent and family participation to improved outcomes for children involved in this sector, including future children born to those currently in out-of-home care. Children placed with kin have been shown to have greater placement stability, fewer emotional and behaviour problems during placement and more connections to their families and social-cultural communities. Positive relationships between parents, families and practitioners have been linked to better outcomes while children remain in care, while supportive relationships between parents, carers and practitioners have been linked positively to restoration (reunification). Evidence also suggests that quality family relationships contribute to improved outcomes for young people leaving care, across a range of ongoing domains including employment and education. Findings from this research align with current evidence about the growing need to fundamentally change the foundations of child protection and out-of-home care practice and policy. The study reiterates the call to include the perspectives of children, parents, and families. It emphasises significant power differentials in these systems, that disempower parents and families in child protection processes. The research findings presented in this report evidence the need to: • Develop a shared understanding of family inclusion; • Develop a sector culture that values and prioritises family inclusion and the voices of parents, families and children; and • Develop a process for family inclusion by co-design with stakeholders. As such, the researchers recommend that a process be initiated by key stakeholder groups to embed family inclusion in child protection and out-of-home care policy and practice at federal and state levels.