The bi-annual Children and Families Secretaries (CAFS) meeting was held in Adelaide on Tuesday 13 August, providing an important opportunity to share insights and discuss common challenges across jurisdictional boundaries.
The bi-annual Children and Families Secretaries (CAFS) meeting was held in Adelaide on Tuesday 13 August, providing an important opportunity to share insights and discuss common challenges across jurisdictional boundaries.
The meeting was formally opened by the Minister for Child Protection, the Hon Rachel Sanderson MP, and attended by chief executives and senior representatives from child protection departments Australia-wide.
One of the meeting highlights was a New South Wales presentation about their reform program ‘Their Futures Matter’, which uses artificial intelligence to anticipate the needs of children and young people by the time they reach 40 years old. Data collected from the concerns report line, education, justice and health systems is used to predict the programs and services that will be needed in the future and guide government investment. The data has already been used to increase and improve referrals to community services and provide an alternate schooling program for all young people going through the court system.
The intersection between domestic and family violence and child protection was another important focus of the meeting, with Victoria presenting about their 2016 Royal Commission into Family Violence. This royal commission identified a number of areas for improvement including developing ways to hold perpetrators to account, improving workforce capacity and addressing homelessness due to family violence. Victoria accepted all 227 recommendations of the royal commission, allocating $2.9 billion in funding and implementing a 10 year plan to reduce family violence. Focuses of their reform agenda include creating pathways through a coordinated service system, establishing accountability for perpetrators and moving away from a crisis-oriented system towards early intervention and prevention.
As the 'National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2009-2020' comes to an end, CAFS members continued discussions about what the post-2020 national priorities should be to see real change, reduce the national prevalence of child abuse and neglect and improve child protection systems around the country.
Children and Families Secretaries (CAFS) members are chief executives from child protection departments around Australia. Members meet twice a year to collaborate and drive national reform. The current chair is Cathy Taylor, Chief Executive, Department for Child Protection.