Hope collection

How can universal access services and specialist support services work proactively and collaboratively to identify family stressors, address underlying causes, and reduce stigma to ensure children's safety and family wellbeing?

Universal access services (early childhood education, schools, and health services) as well as community organisations like sports, arts and recreation organisations

Specialist services, responding to families in need (statutory child protection services, other child/family welfare organisations, and services dealing with parents and families who are struggling with issues like domestic violence, substance misuse, and parental mental ill health)

Practical Advice/Tips for Practitioners

Practical Tips for Universal Access Services

• Strengthen early connections 
  Build trusted relationships with families early, promoting open communication to identify stressors before they escalate into child safety concerns or maltreatment.

• Provide non-stigmatising support 
  Embed accessible parenting resources and education within routine activities to reduce stigma, making families more comfortable seeking assistance when difficulties first arise.

• Train staff in early identification 
  Equip staff with practical skills to sensitively recognise early signs of family stress and confidently provide immediate support (and warm referrals to specialist services when needed).

Practical Tips for Specialist Services

• Collaborate across sectors proactively
  Form proactive partnerships with universal services, clearly defining shared roles, communication channels, and joint actions to intervene effectively at earlier stages.

• Address root causes comprehensively 
  Implement integrated support addressing underlying issues such as poverty, mental health, domestic violence, and substance misuse, prioritising holistic responses rather than crisis intervention alone.

• Reduce intervention stigma 
  Ensure approaches emphasise empathy, respect, and family strengths, explicitly aiming to decrease stigma and resistance, thereby improving families’ willingness to engage constructively with support services.

Abstract

Child welfare and child protection systems are entrenched institutionally and their value stances on working with marginalised groups are, at times, antithetical to the value framework of public health approaches. Differences are sufficiently wide as to render these child welfare systems incapable of advancing a robust prevention agenda focused on child safety and well-being. In this article, we argue for institutionally distinct, yet cooperative approaches focused on universal and secondary-level family and community supports, aimed at breaking down silos and shifting our attention from child welfare reform to community-based systems that are better positioned to proactively meet the needs of children and families before they find themselves in crisis. Within the article, we focus on key tensions and arguments for separate yet cooperative approaches across systems and organisational silos, including the divide between preventive and responsive frameworks, the capacity constraints on existing–reactive–child welfare systems, and shifting the dial to population-wide prevention strategies to address the growing awareness that child maltreatment is a far wider problem than indicated by the number of children reported to child welfare agencies.

Full paper access

Daryl J. Higgins, Todd I. Herrenkohl, Bob Lonne, Debbie Scott. (2024). Advancing a prevention-oriented support system for the health and safety of children. Children and Youth Services Review, Volume 159.

Contact the researcher

Professor Daryl Higgins
Daryl.Higgins@acu.edu.au

Learn more about Professor Daryl Higgins’s research