The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (the ATSICPP) aims to keep children connected to their families, communities, cultures and country, and to ensure the participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in decisions about their children’s care and protection. The ATSICPP centres on five elements: prevention, partnership, participation, placement and connection.
Traditionally, jurisdictions across Australia have primarily focussed on the placement element of the ATSICPP. SNAICC’s new resource, The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle: A guide to support implementation, aims to support a holistic understanding, and the full and uniform implementation of the ATSICPP across the country. The guide provides information on best practice and examples from across the country of promising approaches to implementing each of the five elements of the ATSICPP. The resource also has a section on identifying Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children, with timely identification a pre-requisite to applying the ATSICPP.
The guide is designed to support practitioners and policy makers in the children and family sectors from all jurisdictions to develop strategies to improve their implementation of the ATSICPP. Its content is strongly influenced by the expert knowledge and experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander agencies and leaders in the sector who provided their input to its drafting.
