This audit follows up on recommendations made from the 2014 audit, Residential Care Services for Children. We found that the Department of Health & Human Services has initiated adequate action to address all of the recommendations and underlying issues from the 2014 audit. Actions implemented to date have had a positive impact on reducing the...

Despite families being much smaller, parents being older, mothers being better educated and having much higher employment rates, child poverty has risen significantly since the 1960s. In 1961, 95 percent of children were born to married couples; by 2015 the proportion had fallen to 53 percent. For Maori, 72 percent of births were to married...

The purpose of this review is to support the Royal Commission’s work in developing recommendations for both preventing institutional child sexual abuse and improving institutional responses to this type of abuse.

This report has been prepared by Carolyn Adams (Macquarie University) and Krista Lee-Jones for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It aims to identify aspects of information sharing frameworks that: facilitate appropriate and timely information sharing between institutions and across jurisdictions to identify, prevent and respond to child sexual abuse in...

This paper defines the types of supported playgroups and varying models of implementation in operation in Australia, and assesses the evaluation evidence for their benefits to parents and children. Supported playgroups are playgroups run by a paid facilitator that aim to support families with particular vulnerabilities or needs. Supported playgroups focus on supporting the development...