What's inside:
A new family law Practice Direction has been issued by the Chief Justice that applies to electronic subpoena inspection in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 1) and the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2).
Previously, electronic inspection of subpoenaed documents was a temporary measure introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the process was still governed by a Special Measures Information Notice issued during the pandemic.
In response to feedback from the profession, the undertaking to be given when ‘inspection only’ material (police, child welfare, medical or criminal records) is sought to be inspected electronically has been updated. The new version of the undertaking requires destruction of material to be within:
7 days of ceasing to act in the proceedings;
28 days after the finalisation of the proceedings at first instance; or
28 days after the finalisation of an appeal;
whichever is applicable
The Practice Direction also contains the subpoena email address for each registry, as well as the booking link for represented or unrepresented parties to make an booking to inspect subpoenaed documents in a registry.
Community-based group counselling is an important primary prevention method for improving resilience in children and young people. The aim is to provide early support, skills and knowledge to children and young people in the general population to reduce the likelihood or severity of mental health related concerns and/or diagnoses in the future. The delivery of universal resilience-focused group counselling in community settings such as schools is a cost-effective alternative to more resource-intensive one-to-one mental health support in clinical settings (which often have waiting lists).
In Australia, child and family services provide a variety of community-based group counselling interventions. In child and family services and in child-facing services more broadly (e.g. the education system), community-based counselling interventions are often facilitated by practitioners who are not necessarily psychologists or health practitioners (e.g. counsellors, youth workers, social workers and school teachers). These interventions vary based on the context of service delivery such as the counselling modality, organisational context and target population.
Given the prevalence of community-based counselling interventions across Australia, and their potential significance within the broader mental health system, it is important that both providers of community-based counselling interventions and the agencies funding this work have sound evidence of the benefits of this type of intervention and what good counselling looks like.
Children starting out in secondary school account for more than a third of all cyberbullying reports to eSafety, which have surged by more than 450 per cent in the past five years, new data reveals.
The figures have been released as the world marks Safer Internet Day (February 11, 2025) - a global day of action dedicated to raising awareness of online safety issues, such as cyberbullying.
“This Safer Internet Day - we are calling on all Australians to help make the online world a safer, more positive place,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.
“It’s an opportunity for everyone to have important conversations about online safety with your family, friends and community networks.”
Safer Internet Day comes ahead of the launch of a back-to-school cyberbullying community awareness campaign, which will feature a suite of targeted resources and webinars for parents and carers of children transitioning to secondary school.
In 2024, eSafety received 2,978 valid cyberbullying complaints, a 25 per cent increase compared to the previous year. Of those reports, 1,385 (46 per cent) were in relation to children 13 years-old and younger. Children aged 12 and 13 accounted for 35 per cent of reports in 2024.
Ms Inman Grant said cyberbullying reports tend to increase during the school term as online bullying is often an extension of bullying behaviour in the playground or classroom.
The Productivity Commission (PC) has been asked by the Australian Government to conduct the final review of the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement. The review will assess the impact of programs delivered under the Agreement and make recommendations for the Agreement that aim to enhance the effectiveness, accessibility, affordability and safety of the mental health and suicide prevention system. The PC will soon put out a call for submissions. It will set out some of the issues and questions the Commission has identified as relevant at this early stage of the inquiry. Participants should provide evidence to support their views, including data and specific examples where possible. The PC will seek further information and feedback following the expected release of an interim report in June 2025, with the final inquiry report to be completed by 17 October 2025.If you need specific help or advice, you can contact one of the services below:
Lifeline Australia 13 11 14
Suicide Call Back 1300 659 467
13 YARN 13 92 76
Kids Help Line 1800 551 800
Beyondblue 1300 224 636
Headspace 1800 650 890
Carer Gateway 1800 422 737
Knowing about boundaries and body autonomy helps protect children against abuse and prepares them for a lifetime of respectful relationships.
Around 1 in 4 Australians aged 16 and older experienced sexual abuse as a child. Knowing the steps you can take to keep children and young people safe is vital for parents, family members, teachers, coaches and anyone working with children. Doing so now also prepares them to understand respectful relationships through adolescence and into adulthood. One part of keeping children safe from sexual abuse is teaching them about body autonomy, boundaries and consent. Talking about this with children helps them recognise inappropriate behaviour from adults, teens and other children, and to understand that it’s never a way they should be treated. Children cannot consent to sexual activity.
Teaching consent and boundaries from a young age also gives them a foundation for respectful and appropriate relationships as they grow into adults. This violence is driven by harmful ideas about gender that we can start hearing in childhood – like girls who speak up about the things they don’t like are “nagging” or “unladylike”, or that "boys will be boys” when they ignore their personal safety and the safety of others. Valuing boundaries and teaching autonomy from childhood will help equip them into adulthood.
Child abuse or maltreatment refers to any behaviour or treatment by parents, caregivers, other adults or older adolescents that results in the likelihood of and/or actual physical or emotional harm to a child or young person (Australian Institute of Family Studies [AIFS], 2018; AIFS, 2023). Child abuse can include physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect and exposure to domestic violence (Haslam et al., 2023).
In Australia, child abuse and maltreatment are widespread and are associated with severe mental health problems and behavioural harms, both in childhood and adulthood (Haslam et al., 2023). According to the Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS), 62.2% of the population have experienced at least one type of child maltreatment (Haslam et al., 2023). Experiences of child abuse are rarely isolated events nor limited to a single type (Haslam et al., 2023; Kim et al., 2017). The ACMS also found that girls are significantly more likely than boys to experience sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect and multiple types of maltreatment. In the vast majority of incidents, child sexual abuse is inflicted by males (Haslam et al., 2023; Mathews et al., 2024).
Despite how common experiences of child abuse are, many victim-survivors of child abuse do not disclose until many years after the abuse and some never disclose at all (Royal Commission on Child Sexual Abuse [Royal Commission], 2017a; McQuire & London, 2020; Meinck et al., 2017). The Royal Commission on Child Sexual Abuse (2017a) found that whether, when, how and to whom a victim-survivor discloses is influenced by various factors, including age, developmental stage, disability status, gender and cultural or linguistic background.
The Law Council of Australia has been gravely concerned by the recent incidents and acts of antisemitism that have occurred across the country. At the same time, it is vitally important in challenging times to uphold rule of law principles and not adopt measures that risk serious injustice,” Law Council of Australia President, Juliana Warner said.
“The Government’s amendments to the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024 have introduced mandatory minimum sentences for certain hate crimes and terrorism offences. This would mean, for example, a person guilty of public display of prohibited symbols at a political protest would be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 12 months imprisonment.
“Under mandatory sentencing, the personal circumstances of the offender are not taken into consideration. This has the potential to disproportionately impact vulnerable groups.”
Other elements of the amendments would see minimum sentences of six years imposed in relation to a broad range of terrorism offences. This would include the offence of getting funds to, from or for a terrorist organisation. Financing terrorism offences would be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of three years.
Engaging children as partners in practice helps ensure children’s voices, experiences and knowledge are valued in practice settings. Collaboration between practitioners and children lays a solid foundation for responding to child mental health concerns.
But how can you meaningfully partner with children in your own practice? We’ve outlined six ways you can build partnerships with children and their families.
1. Valuing children as partners
Understanding the benefits of working collaboratively with children and their families provides a strong foundation for building partnerships. This involves recognising children as the experts in their own lives and valuing their contributions to your work together.
2. Paving the way with parents
Establishing a sense of collaboration with parents paves the way for engaging effectively with children. You can do this by having conversations with parents that explore the hopes and concerns they have for their child’s mental health and wellbeing.
3. Considering how to begin
Creating environments that are safe and comfortable for children is an important step in beginning your partnership. This involves thinking about who and what is in the room, talking openly about your work together, and encouraging children to be active participants.
4. Developing rich pictures
Partnering with children involves developing rich pictures of their strengths, skills, know-how and values. You can help children to recognise and value these attributes and capabilities as they share with you. This can provide a foundation to help reduce the impact of problems on children’s mental health and wellbeing.
5. Finding ways to shrink problems
It is important to understand children’s perspective on the problems they are facing. By inviting children to describe these problems and how they affect their lives, you can work together to explore ways to limit their impact.
6. Helping ideas to stick
Working together, you can help children to come up with ideas for responding to the problems in their lives. Ideas can come from recognising the skills, capabilities and interests that children could use (or are already using) to respond to these problems. Identifying the ideas that have worked and making sure they ‘stick’ can help equip children when facing these problems in future.
The FRSA National Conference is heralded as a highlight event for the Family and Relationship Services network and is one of the largest annual gatherings of practitioners, academics and policy makers working to support children, families and communities. This ‘not to be missed’ event will feature a number of highly acclaimed keynote presenters, as well as Federal Ministers and sector leaders with a focus on delivering the most effective services to children, families and young people.
As social service organisations we are always at the cutting edge of emerging trends and changes in society – for the FRS sector, especially for vulnerable children, families and communities.
The theme for the FRSA National Conference 2025 is Safe, Strong and Thriving and will be held at the Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park on 19-22 May 2025.
FRSA’s vision is an Australia where children, families and communities are safe, strong and thriving. At National Conference 2025 we ask: What will it take to bring this vision to life in a complex and ever-changing environment? How do we navigate complexity, change – and the unexpected – to ensure our services work for children, families and communities? Importantly, how do we ensure that our sector is safe, strong and thriving so that we can realise our vision for the people we work with every day?
Family and relationship services are designed as early intervention universal services – available to all people living in Australia, as and when they need them. However, people are increasingly presenting to family and relationship services with complex and intersecting needs, exacerbated by the cost of living and housing crisis, and overloaded tertiary service systems. In this context, what does early intervention mean? And, how do we ensure access for all? We ask presenters to reflect on this context as they prepare an abstract that responds to the theme, Safe, Strong and Thriving.
The FRSA National Conference 2025 provides a platform to showcase and learn from on the ground practice, policy, and research. It will provide an opportunity to identify the strengths we can build on and the opportunities we can harness to meet the changing needs of children, families and communities.
The FRSA Conference is heralded as a highlight event for the Family and Relationship Services Network and will, as always, deliver a prime opportunity to showcase the impressive work of the sector.
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