Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Families in Australia: Poverty and Child Welfare Involvement

Abstract

By international standards, Australia is a wealthy country with a low level of poverty. However, the overall picture hides the substantial gap between the socio-economic status of the Indigenous people – Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders – and other Australians. This relative disadvantage is also reflected in the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the child welfare system. This chapter considers the effectiveness of child welfare services in addressing the poverty and inequality that underlies this disproportionate representation. First, an overview is provided of the dimensions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander over-representation, its causes and consequences. While poverty is not directly a risk factor for child abuse and neglect, it is linked to many of the individual, family, and community problems that can lead to child welfare involvement. Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents experience difficulties such as poor physical and mental health, family violence, drug and alcohol use, and housing instability that characterise families who come to the attention of child protection authorities. The chapter then discusses policy and programs designed to address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander over-representation. The causes of disproportionality relate to a mix of individual, family and system factors that are associated with poverty and social disadvantage. However, child protection intervention has tended to concentrate on individual and family risk factors only, rather than the systemic and structural factors associated with poverty.