The Prevailing Contexts of Domestic and Family Violence and Child Protection

Abstract

Domestic and family violence and child protection are core practice and research contexts for social work, and many articles in this Issue address these topics. As we know, domestic and family violence and child abuse constitute dangerous, violent and damaging episodes, often with life-threatening and even fatal outcomes for Australian women and children. We are reminded regularly through research findings, and in the media on a daily basis, that gender-based violence against women is widespread across Australia and the world. Violence is an ongoing, severe threat to the safety, freedom, health and wellbeing of women, children, families, and communities. A standout theme in this Issue is the intensely difficult practice context of domestic and family violence and child protection work. Equally evident are the targeted efforts by practitioners, policymakers, and researchers who sought to improve outcomes for women, children and families and, in undertaking this vital work, their commitment to optimising relationship-based collaborations. Recent published reports (Commission for Children and Young People, 2022; Commission for Children and Young People WA, 2022; Queensland Family and Child Commission, 2022) informed us of the Australian incidence and prevalence of both child protection and domestic and family violence, and the many programs and interventions initiated. Yet we know this violence prevails. Marginalised groups and those individuals and families dealing with difficult and interrelated circumstances such as poverty, trauma, housing instability, mental health concerns, significant drug and alcohol issues, and those living in regional and remote areas with a lack of accessible services, remain overrepresented as victims/survivors and perpetrators. The severe and even fatal outcome for some children who come to the attention of child protection systems is indicated in several recent Queensland reports, including the Queensland Family and Child Commission (2022) Deaths of Children and Young People report. This Report identifies deaths of children aged 0–17 years from natural causes, accidents, fatal assaults, unexplained causes, neglect, and suicides between July 2021 and June 2022. The Report showed 69 children died who were known to child protection services in the 12 months prior to their deaths, an increase from 53 deaths in 2020 to 2021. The 2021–2022 Annual Report of the Commission for Children and Young People (2023) in Victoria identified premature case closures and a lack of effective early intervention as recurrent themes emerging from the Commission’s inquiries into the deaths of children known to child protection. A recently published international study by Katz and Fallon (2022) of child protective services in 12 countries, including Australia, indicates broad and varied impacts of COVID-19 in relation to child abuse and child protection responses, and we are not yet free from COVID. Equally, highlighting gender differences and vulnerabilities related to safety and wellbeing of children, the Commissioner for Children and Young People WA 2021–2022 (Commission for Children and Young People WA, 2022) drew on the Speaking Out Survey (2021) to reveal a decline in young women’s wellbeing. Young women