Project report

Aboriginal participation in child protection decision-making

Terri Libesman, Wendy Hermeston, Eloise Chandler, Gemma Slack-Smith · 1 Jan 2022

Abstract

The rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, communities and organisations to participate in all significant child protection decision-making in New South Wales (NSW) are legislatively recognised through sections 11, 12 and 13 of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 (the ‘Care Act’). These rights sit alongside and are augmented by an international legal framework which recognises the centrality of the family in a child’s life and the importance of cultural self-determination in child-rearing as a fundamental human right. Despite this recognition — in the NSW statute and within international human rights law — there are many anecdotal accounts and a building body of evidence of the routine breach of Aboriginal families’, communities’ and organisations’ rights to be heard and to contribute to child protection decision-making. Indeed, it is widely argued and perceived that Australian child protection systems remain embedded within a deeply colonial complex of institutions and processes — all of which undermine meaningful participation of Aboriginal families, communities and organisations in child protection decision-making