Foreword

Volume 18, Issue (1): Special Edition of the First Peoples Child & Family Review grew out of a symposium on Indigenous voices in child protection decision-making held in Sydney, Australia, in March 2021. While grossly overrepresented in child protection systems, the experiences and insights of Indigenous families, communities and organisations are often marginalised, or not heard at all, in critical child protection decision-making. The symposium aimed to contribute to creating space for and amplifying the experiences and voices of Indigenous peoples engaged with child protection systems. The NSW/ACT Aboriginal Legal Service, Jumbunna and Law, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) Australia co-convened the symposium. Connection with family, community, culture, and country is crucial to the wellbeing and safety of Indigenous children. Yet, Indigenous peoples’ expertise on these issues is seldom sought or included in child protection decision-making in Australia. Instead, determinations about the interests and wellbeing of Indigenous children tend to be made according to the values and perspectives of non-Indigenous systems and practitioners. Further, resources to support the wellbeing of Indigenous children are grossly inadequate, perpetuating systemic discrimination. The symposium and this Special Edition engage with the need for Indigenous peoples’ control in child protection service design, decision-making, and dispute resolution, including ways for Indigenous peoples’ authority and expertise to be embedded in child protection laws, policy, and fully funded service delivery. The articles in this Special Edition, based on the symposium’s theme, include contributions from symposium participants and authors more broadly. Indigenous peoples’ families provide ongoing culturally founded care for children removed from their families. This cultural care is grounded in Indigenous peoples’ deeply rooted relationships to family, place, and community. Articles across this Special Edition engage with the significance and strength of family relationships while honouring Indigenous families’ commitment to their children in the face of structural inequalities and discrimination. The articles identify and discuss the longstanding racially founded forced removal of Indigenous children and the lack of effective implementation of reforms to address the structural inequalities that drive these removals. The failure to adequately fund early intervention and family support is compounded by discriminatory attitudes of non-Indigenous service systems and providers and the lack of adequate culturally appropriate designed and delivered Indigenous services. This Special Edition collectively points to the strength of Indigenous families, communities, and organisational voices, and the wilful refusal by child welfare and related government departments to act on the evidence concerning effective self-determining child protection systems. Through auto-ethnographic research, Stubbs and Rice provide a reflective analysis grounded in Stubbs’ experiences as a Wiradjuri Stolen Generations survivor and advocate. The authors discuss the crucial role of self-determination in safeguarding the wellbeing of First Nations children and call for a rights-based reform agenda to address the harmful imposition and intervention of settler systems. Stubbs and Rice argue that contemporary systems continue to inflict harm, noting the disproportionate rates of intervention from settler systems, including child protection, youth detention, adult incarceration, and the relationships between them. At the same time, governments have only selectively responded to these challenges, with little substantive change. Reflecting on this urgent need for change, Stubbs and Rice posit opportunities for advocacy across service provision and innovation, targeted advocacy and improved relationships with settler society organisations and institutions focused on hearing and respecting the voices of First Nations peoples in the care of their children. Swan and Swan similarly reflect on their experience providing direct and systemic advocacy to improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, families, and communities through reflective commentary, including the opportunities and challenges of community-based advocacy. They argue that …