While many children grow up in loving homes, children in care often feel neglected and managed rather than cared for. We hear from Queensland Family and Child Commission about the importance of shifting from a bureaucratic, placement-focused approach to one centred on relational care, which prioritises meaningful connections and emotional support
Every child should grow up in a home surrounded by adults who love, respect and care for them. A home should be a safe and nurturing place that provides a child with the foundations for a successful life: one of happiness, opportunity and success. Queensland has 1.6 million children, and for most, this vision is their reality; but for the 13,000 children in care, we know there is a need for meaningful and urgent reform to give them the same childhood experience as those who grow up outside the out-of-home care system.
Without question, immediate and swift action is needed to intervene when a child is deemed unsafe and in need of protection. In Queensland, this responsibility sits
with the State Government. When the state decides to remove a child from their home, it assumes the role of the child’s parent and inherits the immense responsibility to provide that child with more than safety. It becomes responsible for providing them with love, guidance and emotional, psychological and practical support. It means celebrating birthdays and milestones, supporting them to achieve their dreams, helping them to find and grow into their identity, teaching them skills for adulthood, and building their confidence to live well and feel valued as an adult in the world.
To achieve this, we need a model of care based on relationships, not placements, transactions and compliance. Our child protection system neglects this relational foundation and, instead, prioritises its bureaucratic responsibility to deliver a placement. Children with a care experience have told us our model of care leaves them feeling invisible and managed, rather than loved and cared for. We need to shift our mindset around the purpose and function of our out-of-home care system to be one that delivers meaningful, stable and healthy connections, and not just a bed and a roof over their heads.
Systemic issues in care
Children in out-of-home care face disproportionate levels of adversity, which can include abuse and neglect, exposure to domestic and family violence and substance abuse, family dysfunction, and living with family members who have poor mental health. These experiences can lead to poor life outcomes later in life, such as disengagement from education, involvement with the youth justice system, and their own experience of mental health and substance use. While these are not inevitable outcomes for all children in care, adverse experiences in childhood do increase the risk. These risk factors are intensified if left unaddressed and require intensive responses delivered through relational practice
to prevent children from enduring and perpetuating
disadvantage.
Queensland is seeing an increasing reliance on the use of residential care, which is a cause for concern. Residential care is a placement type where children live in a group-home setting, rather than in foster or family-based accommodation. These homes are typically for
older children with complex needs; however, we have seen an increase in very young children, including babies, placed in residential care due to a reported lack
of available family-based alternatives. In Queensland, around 2200 children live in residential care, including around 115 children younger than five. This is an increase of approximately 70% over the last decade. Residential care is not only the most expensive model – costing on average more than $420,000 per child per year – but also the least likely to offer children stable, healing relationships. It’s also the model least likely to
employ relational practice. This trend signals a failing system that is causing harm to children.
Advocating for child-centric care
So what is relational practice? At its core, relational practice prioritises a child’s needs over the capacity of a system: humanity over bureaucracy. It recognises that every child has unique needs that require tailored responses, which can’t always be met by a one-size-fits-all approach that we see in our model of care. Everyone – adults and children alike – needs someone in their life whom they can rely on, talk to, and connect with and share experiences with. Many children in out-of-home care don’t have a strong relationship with anyone. A relational-practice model connects a child with an adult who genuinely cares about them, becomes their champion, and is a constant throughout their life. Relational practice isn’t bound by the confines and needs of a system, and it isn’t driven by limitations of service agreements and employee contracts. When done well, it is truly driven by the needs of the child and focuses on achieving positive long-term outcomes for them.
For relational practice to be successful, the child and their best interests must always be prioritised. This requires the system to create opportunities for children to inform the decisions made about their time in care – who makes them feel safe, who they connect best with, and who they trust. Success also relies on changing how we measure the effectiveness of the out-of-home care system, shifting from monitoring metrics such as the number and length of placements, the cost per child, or the number of referrals to support services. Instead, we need to be measuring how children feel when they are in
care, whether they feel their needs are being met, and how they view the quality of the care they are receiving.
A successful child protection system not only safeguards a child’s safety but also truly fulfils all of their needs. It provides them with long-term stability, healthy development and boundless opportunities. If we are serious about giving children the best chance at life, we need to transform our mindset about how we care for our most vulnerable people, and key to this is for state to fulfil its responsibility to be the best possible parent to every child in its care.
