For me, this month brings the familial duty of caring for a relative's beloved pet while they go on an extended vacation. Despite the inevitable worry that comes with caring for someone else's pet, it has been wonderful to observe the pure joy my daughter feels when playing, patting and ‘training’ the dog to literally jump through hoops. I think I can safely say that the dog has also gained much pleasure from being doted on by an enthusiastic seven-year-old. This observation started a stream of thought about what, if anything, we know about animals’ contributions to the well-being of children who live in out-of-home care (OHC). This, in turn, led to a brief examination of the literature on this topic, which I will share with you here.

The Sanctuary Model (Sanctuary) is a trauma-informed model of care for human services. The model is made up of tools, norms and theoretical underpinnings that form the basis of building safety and promoting recovery from adversity within the context of communities. Sanctuary focuses on healing those who have experienced trauma, by being purposeful and deliberate about the well-being of the system as a whole, including the client, staff, the organisation and more broadly the community. Churches of Christ Care Pathways have been implementing this model within the Australian out-of-home care context including Foster and Kinship Care, Intensive Foster Care, Residential, Supported Independent Living and Intervention Services for the past three years. This article provides a brief description of components of the model, including the SELF model, Community Meetings, Safety Plans, Psycho-Educational Group Work, Self Care Plans, Red Flag Meetings and Team Meetings; detailing practice examples from its use within an Australian context. This article aims to make the link between the model and practice.

Children in out-of-home care (OOHC) experience a number of adverse educational outcomes, including lower attainment and fewer years of schooling; and they are less likely than their peers to remain in education and training after 16 years of age. Children in OOHC are being left behind in educational settings. This is worrying as education can provide the gateway to future life opportunities and a way for them to escape the adverse circumstances which brought them into care. Agencies supporting children in OOHC aim to ameliorate these negative outcomes. The barriers to good educational outcomes for children in OOHC are well documented and include systemic factors over which a support agency has little control. In order to monitor the effectiveness of an agency in supporting children in OOHC, it is essential to monitor the elements of service provision that are influenced by agency inputs rather than systemic or institutional factors. This article will outline potential ways in which agencies can effectively monitor their impact on children's lives.

Aggressive behaviour, more often observed in young boys, is a relatively common factor of sociodramatic play recognised in literature to be beneficial for child development. While educators are often uncomfortable with this form of play, it may be argued that the omission of aggressive play in early childhood programmes fosters the underdevelopment of social, emotional, physical, cognitive and communicative abilities in young children. This is particularly relevant for preschool-aged boys because they engage in aggressive sociodramatic play more often than girls. This article serves to clarify definitions of serious aggression and playful aggression, conceptualise the importance of various forms of sociodramatic play in child development, and provide strategies for educators when confronted with aggressive sociodramatic play in their classrooms.

Music media contains high levels of sexual content and children spend a considerable amount of time interacting with it. This poses the question as to whether children internalise and imitate the sexual behaviours displayed by music artists. This study observed the self-presentation of 366 children aged 5–14 years at two Australian primary school discos. Children of all age groups were directly imitating both sexual and non-sexual dress and behaviours seen in contemporary music videos. Approximately one third of children observed presented in a sexualised way, which suggests children more broadly may be adopting sexualised behaviours at an early age. The prevalence and nature of sexualised behaviours by children, and the impact of this on children's socio-sexual development, are matters requiring further investigation.

Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) develop when unborn children are exposed to alcohol prenatally. As a result of this exposure, children with FASD exhibit a range of social, behavioural, cognitive and even physical deficits that can impede their life-long development. These deficits can be influenced by maltreatment and the instability resulting from being placed into out-of-home care, and/or multiple foster-care placement breakdowns. The aim of this article is to increase awareness amongst child welfare professionals of how prenatal alcohol exposure impacts on children's social development. Social deficits include problems with social cognition and social information processing, which result in issues in social problem solving, processing social cues, social judgement, and developing and maintaining relationships. These deficits leave children with a FASD vulnerable to victimisation, exploitation, peer pressure and, as a result, interaction with the criminal justice system. Deficits are life-long and become more pronounced with age, although early detection and intervention appears to improve social skills deficits. Such interventions need to be explored further as they could potentially mitigate some of these deficits by capitalising on the neuroplasticity of a child's developing brain and pave a more positive trajectory for these children's future.