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Introduction

It’s a pleasure to be here to help NAPCAN launch its vision for Courageous and Inspired Communities.

NAPCAN has a proud history of taking initiative in child protection and this new direction indicates that NAPCAN will continue to distinguish itself well into the future.

I’m really heartened by the new focus on ‘community’, as this sphere and the importance children themselves place on it, has been overlooked in child protection.

It’s an imbalance that we need to redress.

We do children and young people a disservice if we neglect the very positive difference we can make to their lives by building and promoting child safe and child friendly communities.

If you remember just a few things today, I want them to be these:

1. children need to be safe and welcome in the community
2. the communities children live in can be as important to their well-being as the conditions within the family
3. it is not enough for communities to support families in their child-caring role
4. communities must also actively build and promote children’s safety and well-being in community settings

Social contexts in child protection

Those of us who have worked for many years in child protection will know that interest in social context, in environment, in communities, is not new in child protection.

Structural determinants of child maltreatment and neglect were part of the theoretical underpinnings of interventions when David Gil wrote about child abuse in the 70s.

It was a strong theme in the ecological theories of Garbarino and of Belsky, and in the adaptations of the systems analyses of Bronfenbrenner.

And it has been prominent in the more recent work of Nigel Parton. They all discussed the importance of supportive social contexts.

But when we look beyond theory and into the realm of practice, environment seemed to become just the background to the real work that focused on families and individuals.

There are probably a number of reasons for this:

• Perhaps in this area, as in many others, the tendency to individualise problems and see things as personal difficulties has meant we have overlooked other, complementary approaches and solutions.
  
  It is much easier to think about a problem like child abuse and neglect as individual pathology to be treated by professionals than as something that might concern all of us; something for which there may be a collective responsibility.
  
• Statutory child protection work generally takes place within the public sector and is subject to high levels of scrutiny.
  
  The scrutiny is there for good reason. However, one of the challenges this level of accountability brings is the intense scrutiny is often played out in the media glare.
  
  As a result, public debate around child protection is often dominated by ‘the hard end’: cases which are very complex and tragic, yet which are relatively rare. 
  
• Or it may be partly that the task of addressing a need for environmental change seemed overwhelming.
  
  Tackling the immediate needs of children and families has been hard enough.

Whatever the reasons, the capacity of the community to support, nurture and protect its youngest members has not been fully used.

Prevention from a holistic perspective

Social context and structures seem to have been left outside the scope of child protection intervention and mandate.

But as our knowledge about the efficacy of prevention improves, this is changing.

The evidence gleaned from evaluations of prevention programs is clear.

In child protection, as in crime prevention, substance abuse prevention, mental illness prevention etc, it is now recognised that programs must be comprehensive in scope and attend to the various factors underlying social problems.

No early intervention program delivered in isolation can transform disadvantaged children and parent’s lives.

No program can enable children to develop optimally when their larger environment is not conducive to healthy development.

Individual and environmental factors are both of critical importance in growing up children; we all need to consider both aspects of children’s lives.

An effective approach to the prevention of child maltreatment requires us to pay attention to the societal conditions that diminish the quality of children’s and families’ lives.

Australian approaches to the prevention of social problems, which include programs informed by the emerging research in developmental health and well being, may be among the more promising initiatives for the prevention of risk and harm.

These approaches emphasise the importance of building pathways that contribute to the development of skills, resources and strategies. They frequently mention the importance of environment.

Child protection may be yet another illustration of the prevention paradox.

To prevent the most amount of harm, it may be necessary to focus through universal interventions on the majority who are less likely to maltreat or neglect.

This is not to say that programs that specifically address child maltreatment issues aren’t needed.

These more targeted programs must continue for families at high risk and for whom prevention or early intervention activities have not worked or were not adequate.

Evidence must guide our work

As in all our work, we should be guided by evidence of what works for children, families and communities.

It seems to me that if we are to prevent children and young people’s development being impaired by abuse and neglect, we need evidence about two things: interventions that work and the nature of abuse and abusers.

Firstly, we must keep abreast of recent evidence about what works.

For example, the most effective way to prevent child maltreatment, and indeed to prevent most other social problems, seems to be to adopt a dual approach, aiming to reduce risk factors and promote protective factors.

Reducing risk factors and promoting protective factors has been demonstrated to build resilience and capacity in children, and in families, schools and communities themselves.

That evidence reminds us that universal, community based services are fundamental – they are part of a service system to promote child development.

These universal services need to be supplemented by services targeted for those at higher risk.

Secondly, we must base our interventions on up to date knowledge about the nature of abuse and its effects and about the nature of abusers and the way they work.

For example, recently Operation Auxin revealed the appalling extent of demand for child pornography.

Responding to the opportunities that technology offers people who wish to exploit and abuse children is an immediate challenge for us all.

While the internet provides many wonderful opportunities for learning and connectedness, it also poses significant threats.

It provides a way to recruit children for sexual purposes that is relatively safe for perpetrators.

It provides easy access to children and an opportunity for offenders to remain anonymous.

It is difficult to estimate the extent of solicitation via the internet, but John Carr in the UK reports that crimes involving 27 children or young people who have met adult offenders and been sexually assaulted have been reported in the media in the UK in the past two years.

He has reason to think it is very likely an underreported phenomenon.

In Finkhelor’s US study (2000), only a quarter of the children who had encountered a sexual approach reported this to parents and only 10% of these approaches were reported to the police or an Internet Service Provider or other authority.

Suggestions that the profile of child sexual offenders who use the internet is different should also be noted. 

Finkelhor’s study (2000) says that just under a third of child victims reported that the offender was female and half of the perpetrators were reported to be under 18 years of age.

While there is too little data available to be definitive, it appears that in this version of abuse, children and young people are both victims and perpetrators.

Much of the responsibility for monitoring children’s activities on the internet still rests with parents and a range of filter software to prevent children gaining access to inappropriate material.

Information alerting parents to the problem is now available.

The software is, however, only partly successful. It is not comprehensive and there are ways to make it less effective.

It is also unrealistic to expect that parents will necessarily be sufficiently aware of the problem, alert to their children’s net-surfing and chat room activities and knowledgeable enough to prevent inappropriate access.

Internet risk is an example of how the field of child protection and harm prevention is changing and how broadly responsibility for prevention must be owned.

Perpetrators adapt and so must we.

Yes, parents can monitor and install end user blocking devices but their efforts must be complemented by the actions of industry, government and the community.

Communities must take ownership

The safety and well-being of children and young people it not just a private matter.

It is a public issue and a social responsibility.

As children’s independence increases and as their interaction with the community increases, they are exposed to new risks.

Our prevention efforts need to take this into account.

There is a role for parents, there are roles for government but there are also roles for the community.

We need to explore ways of enhancing and supporting existing child protection systems by identifying areas of risk at the community level and by encouraging communities to come up with solutions that work for them.

There is great potential to make a positive difference to the lives of children if the community looks at its role in protecting children.

Workplaces and employers as members of the community can play a critical role in promoting child-safe environments.

By establishing recruitment procedures they can deter people who pose a risk to children and young people from applying for child-related positions.

By developing child protection policies they provide clear guidelines for staff about how children and young people will be respected.

Promoting child-safe and child-friendly workplaces is a significant area of work for the Commission because it recognises the importance of making the places that children learn and play safe.

Another area that offers great potential for enhancing the safety of children and young people is urban planning.

There are ways to design, layout and light buildings, streets and public spaces that can increase the risk of harm to kids, and ways that can make them safer and feel more welcome.

Communities can make the places where young people congregate safer and more welcoming.

Children and young people’s knowledge and opinions can inform the way we design and build our physical environment, but their views are rarely sought about these issues, except possibly about skateparks.

Child-safe and child-friendly communities

People will engage with these initiatives to the extent that the safety and well-being of children and young people matter to them.

Commitment to the promotion of the safety and well-being of children and young people needs to be fostered in the community at large.

It would be naïve to underestimate the problem here.

Increasingly, we are becoming a very individualistic society where having children is often regarded as a personal choice and an individual responsibility.

Even those who are parents are often concerned about the needs of their own children without necessarily considering the needs of children and young people as a group.

I believe a child-safe community must be a child-friendly community, one where kids are valued, respected and welcomed, where they feel confident to raise problems or concerns and know they will be listened to.

The notion of “child-friendly communities” might apply to whole communities such as cities or local government areas, or it might apply to institutions or systems which are part of those communities, like schools. 

What would a child-friendly community look like?

• In child-friendly community, kids are listened to.
  Children would be consulted on all issues which affected them and in which they have an interest, including school, community development, service provision, leisure and recreation and family life.
• Their views would be actively sought.
  A community where children were listened to would be a community where playgrounds were revitalised so they were stimulating and safe, not ripped out because they posed public liability risks;
• A child-friendly community respects kids’ rights.
  A community where kids’ rights were respected would provide access to good quality child care, education and health services, regardless of their background.
  Such a community would take extra steps to respect the rights of kids who have difficulties as a result of poverty or disability, or who suffer discrimination because of their backgrounds.
• A child-friendly community values children and the contribution they make because of who they are now, not because of the adults they will become.
• A child-friendly community protects kids, is vigilant to children’s risk and intervenes if their safety is jeopardised.
• A child-friendly community provides services and facilities children need to grow, learn and play, like child care and schools, parks and sports fields, affordable transport that operates when kids need it and accessible, clean public toilets.
• And in a child-friendly community, adults accept their responsibility to respond to the needs of children and young people.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I’d like to say that the child protection sector has a significant role to play in the creation of child-safe and child-friendly communities.

We need to expand the child protection debate to focus on the needs of the entire child.

The safe and healthy development of children should be the primary aim of all policies affecting them.

And I remind you of the take-home messages I mentioned at the beginning:

1. children need to be safe and welcome in the community
2. the communities children live in are as important to their well-being as the conditions within the family
3. supporting families in their child-caring role is not enough
4. communities can actively build and promote children’s safety and well-being in community settings.

The statutory child protection system is one part of this more comprehensive world-view.

It still takes a village to raise a child.

But the village has to be a safe place for children to play, learn and grow.

NAPCAN’s own reorientation demonstrates our society’s emerging awareness that the scope of child protection and harm prevention is changing.

I applaud NAPCAN’s leadership in this work.

Changing the way we understand out role means challenges and opportunities for us all.

We must all be courageous and inspired if we are to contribute to the emergence of child-safe and child-friendly communities in which children feel welcome and there is no place for any form of violence or other harm to children and young people.

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