The journal was first established in 1976 with the title Australian Child and Family Welfare (quarterly), and it was known as such for the first 15 years of its existence. It was published by the Children’s Welfare Association of Victoria as the quarterly journal of the Child and Family Welfare Council of Australia. Co-editors were the Rev Denis Oakley and Dr Peter O’Connor. Denis tells us that the funds to get it started came from the Children’s Welfare Foundation. This foundation was an outstanding example of partnership between business and the non-government sector. Not without controversy, Denis performed on television in his clergyman clobber advertising products for Billy Guyatt stores, drawing in funds for the Foundation which were also applied to the establishment of Grassmere, a community-based youth facility, and to some research work into adoption and family law. The book review editor was Mr Cliff Picton, associate editor was Mr Max Liddell, Mr David Thackeray was business manager, Mr Vernon Knight was circulation manager and the committee providing support was Mrs Glenys Craig, Mr John Edwards, Mr Bill Hughes, Canon Neal Malloy OBE and Mrs Patsy Sebastian. It had a group of interstate representatives, Spencer Colliver, Ray Jenkins, Albert Kruipers, Rev Lyn Reilly, George Belchev, Adam Jamrozik, Geoff Aves and editorial consultants Concetta Ben, Prof Peter Boss, Spencer Colliver and Dr Len Tierney. In the editorial in the first issue was the explanation that the journal was being launched as so much was going on in child and family welfare, that there was a need for a forum. Many of the specialist journals failed to appeal to the broad readership in social welfare, whereas this journal would ‘aim for the broad spectrum of people who make up the vast army of workers in the child and family welfare field … Our concern is to open up discussion on policies and practices, to discuss innovations and the raising of standards.’

Children Australia is a friendly journal. It is accessible, readable, contemporary, and straight forward. It has always been intended as a forum for practitioners and external commentators alike. The editorial policy has been relatively relaxed, with assistance provided to ensure a good spread of contributors. A quick scan of papers published over the last four years shows a predominance of papers from academics, primarily within schools of social work. These are enriched by contributions from writers from community development, youth services, child development, psychology, policy studies and history, often giving an extra critical slant or a sharp specialist focus that might otherwise be conspicuously missing. Personally, I really appreciate this interdisciplinary conversation and hope it will be preserved and developed.

It’s usually the end of a long day — perhaps the end of a long week — when that anonymous article is drawn from the pile of ‘things to do’. And it seemed like a small task when I agreed to be a reviewer for that journal article. I was interested in the topic … I am interested in the topic! I also support the aims and focus of the journal. After all, it’s one that melds practice and theory, and creates dialogue and debate amongst a range of professionals working in the child, youth and family sector. But I’m a little weary and I’m hoping to find energy and passion in the paper I’m about to tackle — an energy that will carry me through the next few hours of reading, thinking and writing that review report.

In almost all current debates concerning services for young people in out-of-home care it has been customary to define services in terms of the so-called ‘continuum of care’, a hypothetical typology of placement options that differ in varying degrees from conventional family life. According to this philosophy, children should always be placed into family foster care rather than congregate care because foster placements are more normalised, nurturing, and place fewer limits on children’s individuality and freedom of choice. In this paper, we argue that this approach is limited because it fails to consider the diversity of actual services and structures possible at different points in the hypothetical continuum. In our view, future policies may be better served by a dimensional approach that views placement options as a configuration of factors including: the physical and living environment, service type, and staffing characteristics. In this system, the quality and suitability of placement options is no longer defined by names or labels (eg, family, group or residential), but by the actual nature of the placement provided. Appropriate combinations of these elements, rather than a choice between fixed categories, may assist in the development of innovative options better able to meet the needs of young people not suitable for existing care arrangements.

An earlier evaluation of the New Zealand child protection program ‘Keeping Ourselves Safe’ found, inter alia, that girls with learning problems were highly vulnerable to drugs, sexual abuse and violence (Briggs & Hawkins 1996a). This led to the present study, the aim of which was to focus specifically on children with learning disabilities, and to include data from boys as well as girls.

Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from one hundred and sixteen students aged 11–17 years (61 females and 55 males) who were interviewed in special education units. Their common characteristics were that they had all been assessed as being 3 years or more behind their chronological age group in their development and achievement, they needed individually planned curricula across the range of school subjects, and they had all previously attended mainstream schools throughout the North and South Islands of New Zealand.

The study confirmed the vulnerability of children with learning disabilities to the risks of drugs, violence, psychological bullying, pornography and sexual abuse. Significant levels of violence in both schools and the home were found. The study also showed the need for special attention for the protection of boys.

It is possible that children with learning disabilities were targeted because they were seen as safer targets in terms of an expectation that they would be less aware of the difference between right and wrong and less likely than other children to make a report about any abusive behaviour. If this speculative hypothesis is correct, it means that children with learning disabilities require even more vigilant forms of protection than other children.

Written from a practitioner’s perspective, this article explores some concerns with the application of the very popular strength based approaches to statutory child protection work. It is suggested that, despite the many benefits and positives in these approaches, these models are sometimes used (or misused) too early in intervention, which can lead to over optimism about the possibilities for change. The article questions whether a solely strength based approach can be safely applied to child protection work, and encourages practitioners to question their practice and ‘proceed with caution’.

This article reviews the development of men and family relationship services in Australia from a practice perspective. Significant milestones in increasing the range and diversity of services for men have been achieved since 1998, when the first National Men and Family Relationships Conference was held in Canberra. Eight principles for successful practice in working with men are identified, along with the challenges faced by the sector.