Why Family Preservation is Essential to Protecting NSW Children and Strengthening Families

Family Preservation services play an essential role in improving the safety and well-being of children by enhancing parenting skills and family functioning, addressing complex factors that contribute to risk of harm, building networks of support for families and supporting children’s healthy development. With growing pressure in the out of home care system in NSW, there is a need for Family Preservation Work with families more than ever.

Here you can find dedicated information on Family Preservation, sector reform, and ACWA’s work to support the Family Preservation sector in NSW. ACWA is passionate about seeing children grow and thrive in safety within their families and are advocates that effective and accessible Family Preservation services are vital to that outcome.

What is Family Preservation

• When children or young people in NSW are experiencing significant harm or adversity, Family Preservation services provide vital support to help parents respond to their children’s needs and creating a safe, stable and nurturing environment. They do this by providing voluntary therapeutic care, supporting the development parenting skills, and working with parents to improve family functioning and enable children’s wellbeing and development.
• Family Preservation services’ key objective is to improve children and young people’s safety and prevent them from entering and out-of-home care, and reduce the need for future contact with the child protection system. They also aim to support families and kids to achieve broader social outcomes, including better health, education and other wellbeing indicators.

ACWA’s Support and Advocacy

ACWA is passionate about supporting the Family Preservation sector. We do this through:

Family Preservation Redesign and Recommissioning Process

The Department of Communities and Justice is progressing the redesign and recommissioning of the Family Preservation system to strengthen outcomes, accessibility and effectiveness of services across NSW.

Following the announcement of tender outcomes, the sector is now entering a critical transition phase as existing programs wind down and new services are established. This period will require careful coordination to maximise capacity and enable as smooth a transition as possible.

Throughout this process, ACWA is advocating for a strong, stable and responsive Family Preservation system, including:

• A continued focus on children’s safety and wellbeing, with services designed to meet the needs of families experiencing the highest levels of risk and complexity
• Evidence based, relationship centred practice that supports meaningful and sustained change for families
• Transparent, timely and accountable transition processes, including clear timelines, consistent communication and early engagement between outgoing and incoming providers
• The rapid establishment of Local Transition Groups, with decision makers present, to support effective handovers, shared problem solving and place based responses to emerging challenges
• Strong support for the child and family workforce, recognising staff as a critical resource and minimising disruption to workers and families during transition
• Collaboration across government, peaks and service providers to address system challenges and support continuity of care

ACWA is working closely with Fams, AbSec and other partners to support the sector through this period of change and to ensure that the voices and experiences of services continue to inform implementation.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss how the tender announcement affects your organisation please contact: carolyn@acwa.asn.au

See ACWA’s submission to the Department of Communities and Justice regarding the Redesigning Family Preservation in NSW Discussion Paper.

Thank You

The following agencies contributed to this submission through direct contributions and consultations:

Resources

ACWA is continuing to engage with DCJ throughout the recommissioning process.