Family Matters releases inaugural report on child protection for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home Report, the Family Matters campaign has released their inaugural baseline report into the state of child protection for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

The numbers say it all. If the current trend continues then the more than 15,000 Indigenous children in statutory care in 2015 will be 45,000 by  2035.

Natalie Lewis writing in The Guardian makes an impassioned plea for a co-ordinated response to the crisis.

The solutions to this issue require a cohesive, national strategy to achieve not only a systems change but also a change in attitude. It’s something we can’t achieve alone. This needs commitment of all key decision-makers from the federal, state and local levels, and it needs community leadership – Aboriginal and mainstream.

We would like to make recordkeeping and archiving systems part of that systems change, supporting the application of the Aboriginal Child Placement principle so that connections to family, community, culture, and country are maintained.