Submission to the Families and Children Activity Review

SNAICC welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the Department of Social Services’ (the Department) review of Children, Youth and Parenting Programs under the Families and Children Activity (FaC Activity Review). The FaC Activity Review represents a major opportunity to improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children by increasing the proportion of FaC Activity-funded services delivered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations (ACCOs), in line with Priority Reform 2 and Clause 55 of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.

The Department’s current approach to funding child, youth and parenting programs is not working to achieve improved outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families to meet Closing the Gap Targets 12. The over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care has worsened since the baseline year when data collection began. According to the 2024 Family Matters Report, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are 5.6 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be reported to child protection authorities and 7.2 times more likely to have notifications substantiated.

Local and international evidence demonstrates self-determination is the most effective policy setting to reverse these trends and generate sustained improvements in outcomes for First Nations children and families. ACCOs embody self-determination for children and families, because their ways of working involve communities deciding themselves what services they and their children need to thrive. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families, support services delivered by ACCOs are most effective, as these organisations employ more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, are accountable to their local communities and deliver culturally safe services that address families’ holistic needs. This means ACCOs secure higher levels of engagement from Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander children and families, as opposed to non-Indigenous services, which are less trusted given the ongoing impacts of colonisation, racism and child removal.

SNAICC’s objective is to work with the Department, in genuine partnership, to substantially increase the proportion of FaC Activity funding to ACCOs and strengthen the sector to deliver community-led, place-based child and family services that are tailored to community needs. The current proportion of ACCO service providers of children, youth and parenting programs is far too low (4%) and in spite of a 20% increase in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families accessing these services between 2016 and 2021. The proportion of funding provided to ACCOs should be closely aligned to the higher level of need for family supports experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, reflected in overrepresentation in child protection systems, where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children make up 43.7% of all children in care.

Current FaC Activity funding allocation to ACCOs must be significantly increased to align with the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (National Agreement). As signatories to the National Agreement, all Australian governments recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled is an act of self-determination (Clause 44) self-determination and acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled services are better for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, achieve better results, employ more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and are often preferred over mainstream services (Clause 43). In recognition of this, all governments have committed to implement funding prioritisation policies to actively preference ACCOs in the provision of services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities (Clause 55a).

Failure to transition funding to ACCOs will mean Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families cannot access the services they need. It will also perpetuate ineffective government spending, by continuing to direct funding towards non-Indigenous providers who are far less likely to achieve improvements in outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. This is unacceptable when so many valuable and effective programs delivered by ACCOs are underfunded.