Keynote address presented to the Family Services Australia Annual Conference Connecting Families and Communities, by Adam Tomison. In answering the following questions - Is the family support system meeting the needs of Australian families? Do our current approaches work? And if so, how do we know? What is good practice in supporting families? - this paper attempts to provide an overview of some of the current trends in service provision that have been developed to meet identified needs, outlines recent changes and some of the key facets of service provision, and some promising areas that would benefit from further exploration.