The Department has published a range of practice frameworks, action plans and other documents. These are often developed with external stakeholders and are research-based. These publications underpin the work we do in all areas of child protection and provide additional context and understanding when read in conjunction with the Act and the CPM. See below for a summary of the primary frameworks currently in use and central to best practice.
Signs of Safety Child Protection Practice Framework
Signs of Safety is the primary assessment and engagement framework used by the Department. The framework uses specific practice tools and processes to bring family members and professionals together in partnership to look at, and manage, risk of child abuse. Signs of Safety is a solution-focused, strengths-based model that:
explores harm and danger while building on existing strengths and safety
provides workers with the tools to articulate professional knowledge in a manner the family will understand, and equally acknowledges the family's knowledge and wisdom about their own circumstances, and
is designed to support professional collaboration and equal family engagement in the assessment process.
The framework has four distinct but interrelated domains for inquiry and assessment. These are:
1. What are we worried about?
This includes capturing past harm, future danger and identifying complicating factors, which can exacerbate risk.
2. What's working well?
This section is where we identify and explore existing safety across the family network, and what the family are already doing to keep the child safe.
3. What needs to happen?
This is where we look at what changes need to be made to address each of the concerns. This is the planning/finding solution phase of the assessment process and we do this in collaboration with the family.
4. Where are we on a scale of 0-10?
When scaling, '10' means there is enough safety for the child protection authorities to close the case, and '0' means it is certain the child has been harmed and there is no potential to create enough safety for the child to remain in the home. By asking everyone how worried they are, and why they are worried, the assessment becomes much more transparent and the family will have a better understanding of why certain actions are being taken or not taken.
As much as possible, all statements used throughout the process should focus on specific, observable behaviours and judgement-loaded terms should be avoided. Clear, commonly understood danger statements are essential since they define the fundamental issues that must be addressed via safety planning.
Safety planning is key to creating safety for a child. It is designed to create a proactive, structured and monitored process that provides parents involved in child protection matters with a genuine opportunity, to demonstrate that they can provide the safety and care for their children in a manner required of them by the Department. To sustain hope and constructive professional-family engagement, it is best if the safety planning occurs as quickly as possible after the initial contact.
Aboriginal services and practice framework
Aboriginal children and families are significantly over-represented in the child protection system. The framework details some of the challenges faced by Aboriginal people, while acknowledging the resilience and strengths of Aboriginal communities and cultures and makes a strong commitment to improve the outcomes for Aboriginal children, families, and communities.
The framework sets out clear collective responsibilities for all departmental workers to support the goal of achieving better outcomes for Aboriginal children, their family, and communities. These responsibilities include:
understanding our shared history of colonisation and its ongoing influence and negative impact on the present
delivering policies, practices and services that are culturally responsive and which effectively meet the needs of Aboriginal children, families and communities
recognising the strength of aligning with Aboriginal people's worldviews, values, traditions, and approaches in our current and future practice
actively seeking out partnerships that support Aboriginal children, families, organisations, and communities, and
building on the existing strengths and resilience in Aboriginal families, organisations, and communities.
In addition to the above responsibilities, the Department has made a commitment to foster cultural competence to improve engagement and service provision.
Path to Safety: Western Australia's strategy to reduce family and domestic violence
Family and domestic violence is a pervasive and complex social problem with serious justice, community safety and public health consequences. This strategy is the Department's plan to address family and domestic violence through a whole-of-community response over the next decade. The role of child protection is a fundamentally important element of this approach.
See below for the list of guiding principles underpinning the action plan.
People in Western Australia should be safe in their relationships and in their homes.
The safety and wellbeing of child and adult victim-survivors is the first priority.
Children and young people exposed to domestic violence are victims.
Perpetrators are solely responsible for their actions – victims must not be blamed.
Women's safety is linked to gender equality.
Everyone has a role in stopping family and domestic violence.
Effective solutions are locally tailored, culturally safe and trauma informed.
Men and boys are integral to the solution.
There is a 'no wrong door approach' to service delivery.
The four areas of primary focus include the following:
1. Working with Aboriginal people to strengthen Aboriginal family safety
Recognising the disproportionate impact of family violence on Aboriginal women, children, families and communities and the need to respond to the different drivers of violence experienced by Aboriginal people.
2. Act now to keep people safe and hold perpetrators to account
This refers to both responses to achieve safety and long-term recovery for victim-survivors, as well as managing the multiple risks that perpetrators present.
3. Grow primary prevention to stop family and domestic violence
Preventing violence from occurring in the first place requires an expansion to the way we currently work. It requires us to actively challenge the attitudes and social conditions that enable violence to occur.
4. Reform systems to prioritise safety, accountability and collaboration
Government agencies and community sector services will work together to provide culturally appropriate, holistic, safe, and accountable responses to victim-survivors and perpetrators, streamlined pathways through the service system and coordinated service delivery between agencies and systems.
The strategy clearly outlines the impact for children and young people exposed to violence in the home, noting that these impacts may be immediate or chronic. These include:
- low self-esteem
- learning difficulties
- behavioural problems
- depression and other mental health issues
- bullying, and
- homelessness
Perpetrator accountability in child protection practice
This is a practice-focused resource designed to provide child protection workers with safe, ethical guidance to minimise risks for child and adult victims of domestic violence. The document also aims to support their long-term recovery, in addition to engaging and responding to men who perpetrate domestic violence.
The four primary practice principles for this resource are detailed below:
The safety of the child and adult victim-survivors is paramount.
Increasing the safety of the non-abusive parent and their safety networks enhances the safety for the child.
In order to keep the child and adult victims safe, perpetrators of family and domestic violence must be held accountable for their actions and actively supported to cease their violent behaviour.
The safest and most effective responses to family and domestic violence involve collaboration and coordination with other agencies and services.
Underpinned by the Signs the Safety Practice Framework, this resource supports workers to develop safe strategies for information gathering, and details micro-skills helpful in engaging men to talk about their use of violence. The resource also describes your referral options and how best to ensure an effective, coordinated response to the child's needs. Guidance is provided to work constructively with women who have experienced or who are experiencing family and domestic violence.
The resource explores and helps the worker to understand the experience of a child being mothered by a woman living in fear and fathered by a man who is a perpetrator of violence.
Intensive Family Support Approach
The Department recognises that earlier and more intensive engagement and intervention provides the best opportunity to effectively support and benefit children and families. This is particularly important for families dealing with multiple challenges such as family and domestic violence, homelessness, poor mental health, and substance misuse. This type of intervention will also reduce the likelihood of a child entering out-of-home care. Early intervention work is carefully aligned with and underpinned by the Signs of Safety Practice Framework and the Aboriginal Services and Practice Framework.
The Department provides a range of primary, secondary and tertiary services in health, early childhood and education, in collaboration with a range of community service providers. Under the Early Intervention and Intensive Family Support (EIFS) strategy, the Department provides targeted intensive family support to 'hard to reach' families and children. These are delivered directly by the Department or via contracted services.
The intensity of intervention applies to the frequency and duration of contact, and the variety of services provided to the family. This extended, stable contact with the Department allows the family to build relationships with workers and the Department to provide a targeted service to meet the specific and individual needs of the family, as identified in collaboration with the family.
Key goals of the IFS teams include:
A stronger focus on working with Aboriginal families, earlier and in a culturally responsive way, to divert children from entering out-of-home care.
Utilising the Family Finding tools to locate families. Where a child cannot be brought up by their own family and community, they have a right to maintain meaningful connections.
Intensive support is provided for 6-12 months, depending on the needs of the child.
All IFS cases to be reviewed monthly via the Multidisciplinary Care Consultations (MCC's).
To align and coordinate government services to have a local and shared role in identifying families who require intensive earlier intervention.
Greater collaboration and shared responsibility of government agencies and community sector services, including Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs).
Care Team Approach Practice Framework
Every child in care has a 'care team' comprising of a group of people important to the child and carer, and who share responsibility for meeting the needs of the child in their care journey. Part of this responsibility is to maintain and support the child's care arrangement and their continued connection to parents, siblings, the child's wider family, network, community, and culture.
The emphasis is on:
creating and maintaining stability in environment and relationships
reducing disruption to lifetime connections the child had when they entered out-of-home care; and
developing and maintaining naturally occurring networks the child would have had if they were not in out-of-home care.
This care team approach promotes proactive, rather than reactive, case management and is guided by the question, "what do I need to do to support the child's development, learning, stability and growth, as well as healing?" This way of working places the child's best interests and needs as the central focus.
Support from the care team is particularly important during:
transitions, particularly between care arrangements or schools.
legal proceedings, and
at other difficult times for the child and their carer.
Residential Care Sanctuary Framework
The Residential Care Sanctuary Framework describes the overarching model and core elements of how the Department's residential care facilities operate, including the Kath French Secure Care Facility. The Framework is largely based on the principles of the Sanctuary Model, which is a coherent and therapeutic approach to care, and which facilitates positive organisational change within care facilities.
Children and young people who have experienced abuse and trauma may not function at their chronological age in terms of their physical, social, emotional or cognitive skills. It is critical that care givers are aware of the effects of abuse and trauma and respond therapeutically, rather than reactively, to what can be challenging behaviours.
Multicultural Plan
This plan was developed to meet the need for culturally responsive service provision and to highlight the importance of considering the diversity of the children, families, and communities we work with. A key aim of the Plan is to improve the cultural competence of the Department in relation to Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) families we have contact with.
Cultural competence is required for service provision to be culturally safe and appropriate. To meet cultural competency, the following elements should be demonstrated by the Department, individual workers and service providers:
Awareness of the influence of their own cultural beliefs on practice
Respect for, and sensitivity to, the cultural practices and beliefs of others
Provision of language services, and
Commitment to supporting cultural diversity, including the provision of, or completion of, cultural competency training.
Institutional discrimination is embedded in policies and practices of an organisation. While this form of discrimination is often unintentional, the effect is to limit or restrict people, particularly from minority groups, from accessing all or some of the services of an organisations in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. Unless unconscious bias and systemic racism are consciously countered through anti-oppressive practice and a commitment to cultural competency, culturally safe service provision is unlikely to be achieved.
State Disability Strategy
This strategy paper was created by the Department in accordance with the Disability Services Act 1993 and seeks to achieve the following objectives:
eliminate access barriers and foster inclusiveness
raise awareness and understanding of client and employee needs in order to deliver services and information that add value
create an environment that embraces and values diversity; and
have a systematic approach to managing access and inclusion which is integral to the way the Department does business.
This strategy is designed as a corporate strategy to achieve greater workplace diversity and to break down barriers for people with disability, across all service areas. Given this focus, there are no specific guidance or child protection focus. However, the strategy provides useful insight into the issues facing people with disability and provides information on what strategies can help to overcome these barriers.
WA Youth Action Plan
The Action Plan draws on years of consultation with young people and youth service providers, in addition to work completed during the emergency response phase of COVID-19. It outlines how the Department and the broader State Government have worked with the youth sector prior to, and during the initial pandemic response. This document communicates many of the concerns and issues facing young people, including job losses, insecure employment, social isolation, poor mental health, and limited access to digital technology.
The consultation highlighted the diversity of young people and the need to ensure that groups such as Indigenous young people, youth with disability, members of the LGBTQIA+ community and young people from CaLD backgrounds are represented and included in the implementation of any youth-specific initiatives. Young people articulated their worries about getting support not only for their own mental health, but also how to best help their friends who are struggling with increased social isolation, poor employment prospects, and finding a safe place to live.
