This study examines the findings of the recent Community Affairs Reference Committee report into institutional and out-of-home care. Attention is drawn to the key role played by the Care Leavers of Australia Network (CLAN) in pushing the concerns of older care leavers onto the public agenda, successfully lobbying for the Senate Inquiry, and providing services and supports to care leavers.

The report highlighted the historical failure of state authorities to protect the well-being of children and young people placed in alternative care. Many of those children have subsequently experienced significant emotional and psychological problems, the results of which include psychiatric illness, depression, suicide, substance abuse, illiteracy, impaired relationship skills and marriage breakdown, and incarceration.

The report also has contemporary implications. In order to achieve better outcomes for care leavers in the future, we need to ensure that child welfare services are adequately funded, employ properly trained and qualified professional staff, promote a gradual and functional transition from dependence to independence, and ensure accountability to external bodies including consumer groups.

This article analyses the Australian Government’s communications on children in immigration detention, particularly those detained at Woomera and Baxter Detention Centres. The authors examine paradoxes and ‘double-bind’ theory; theory which analyses communications which continually put the target of them in the wrong and allow no escape. The analysis uses selected passages from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass’ to highlight the nature and impact of such communication. The authors conclude that the Australian Government has consistently used paradoxical communication. In doing so it has placed children and families in detention, child protection workers, the South Australian Government, and sometimes external critics in a communication trap from which it is difficult to escape. Other bodies such as Courts have also demonstrated much paradox in their behaviour and communications on detention issues.

This paper explores the ACT Government’s investment in a school based human services program. This program aims to improve educational and social outcomes for children and young people by creating effective working relationships between families, communities and their schools. It considers the contemporary challenges to achieving a quality service in a domain not normally inhabited by human services professionals. The main focus of the paper is an analysis of some of the factors which were considered in establishing a high quality service.

The paper draws attention to the importance of developing a conceptually sound program model, in particular one which demonstrates how evaluation can be integrated throughout the program cycle. It argues the importance of pursuing two key pathways to quality: the achievement of professional standards in program design, and the pursuit of the consumer voice in shaping and judging program performance.

The paper contends that program sustainability in this field of practice hinges on recognising who the consumers are, and achieving a range of outcomes which address their varied needs and priorities.

The first section of this paper explores the ‘discovery’ of organised ritual abuse and reviews the literature with particular attention to the developing knowledge base, the question of credibility, the silencing of debate, and the ongoing research.

The second section considers the central research issues. The question of definition is discussed and the adoption of ‘organised ritual abuse’ as a working definition is proposed. The four aspects of organised ritual abuse, which analysis of the literature suggests are its key defining features, are then discussed. Finally, consideration is given to the importance of values in this field of research.

A camera pans slowly across the crowd of spectators early one winter’s morning. As parents smile, indulgently cheering every passage of play, very young footballers of no more than six years of age strive their hardest. The children fumble, they trip, stumble and often miss the ball completely. An avuncular voice-over extols these halcyon days of blossoming friendships and burgeoning attitudes, asserting that such experiences will forge lifelong memories for those most actively involved … and for the children too.