Stronger Together: Executive Summary

This is a summary of Stronger Together: Strengthening families to improve outcomes for children. To download the full resource, please see the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre website at https://www.monash.edu/arts/gender-and-family-violence/

research-and-projects/supporting-family-reunification-in-child-protection

This study centres on family reunification in the Victorian Child Protection system. The Children’s Court of Victoria may make a Family Reunification Order where it determines a child is in need of protection and cannot safely stay in parental care. A Family Reunification

Order gives parental responsibility for the child to Department of Families, Fairness and

Housing.

Amendments to the Children Youth and Families Act 2005 in 2016 introduced a 12 month time limit, which may be extended for a further 12 months, for parents to achieve

reunification with a child who has been removed from their care. These amendments were intended to ensure timely decision-making and provide safe and permanent homes

for children within 24 months.

This report presents findings based on the experiences of mothers seeking the return of their children to their care within the Victorian Child Protection system and the community legal practitioners who assist and represent them. The research explores the issues mothers were asked to address when working towards reunification, their relationships with Child Protection caseworkers and any help mothers received from support services during the reunification process. All the mothers involved in this study were affected by domestic and family violence (DFV).

Thirty mothers were interviewed by phone for this study and a total of 13 community legal centre practitioners participated in three online focus groups. The research was carried out by the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre in partnership with Women’s Legal Service Victoria (WLSV).

The research was funded by a Knowledge Grant from the Victoria Law Foundation.