Early Years
Accessing Services
Navigating the early years system can be challenging, and families often report feeling overwhelmed with knowing which services are right for their children and when. The tables provided below can be used by professionals, parents and carers to guide which services and supports will be most suitable for a child based on their age.
Accessing Early Years Services – Age Milestones
Print out the professionals version and stick it on your desk or in your office as a quick reference point. The table for families can be printed and shared with parents and carers for use on their fridge or any place it would be helpful for them.
Use the Finder on the Early Years Hub to learn more about each service, subsidy or support.
Child Abuse & Neglect
Mandatory Reporting is a legislative requirement for certain professions to report suspected cases of child abuse and neglect to appropriate government authorities. Each jurisdiction across Australia has Mandatory Reporting, however there is variation in who has to report and what types of abuse should be reported. Mandatory Reporting legislation includes family, community and organisational child abuse, and works alongside Reportable Conduct Schemes in relevant jurisdictions.
Information on the requirements across jurisdictions, can be found on the Australian Institute of Family Studies website
Reportable Conduct Schemes operate alongside breaches to organisational Codes of Conduct. Reportable Conduct Schemes seek to improve organisations responses to allegations of child abuse and neglect by their workers and volunteers. Reportable Conduct Schemes operate alongside of breaches to organisational Codes of Conduct. Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and Victoria all have Reportable Conduct Schemes in place.
Reporting child abuse
Find details on the DHHS website about reporting of child abuse.
Failure to Disclose
Find information about the offence for failure to disclose child sexual abuse, which was introduced in 2014.
Australia Institute of Family Studies – What is child abuse and neglect?
The United Nations – Convention on the Rights of the Child
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children – No one noticed, no one heard
Department of Families, Fairness, and Housing – Reporting concerns about children or young peoples (a guide for professionals)
Department of Justice and Community Safety – Grooming offence
Department of Justice and Community Safety – Failure to protect: a new criminal offence to protect children sexual abuse
Australian Institute of Family Studies – Child abuse prevention: What works?
Resources
Safety Planning Guide with children and young peopleA resource that provides some questions to ask yourself about the child or young person you are working with to assess what kind of safety measures can be put in place.
1800RESPECT General resources about working with children who’ve experienced family violence
Safe & Together Model This model provides a suite of tools and interventions in a perpetrator pattern based, child centered, survivor strengths approach to working with family violence.
Kids Central Toolkit A number of tools and resources are available to download for free under six principles: Keep Me Safe, I’m One of a Kind, My Family is Special, Make It Fun, Keep Me in the Loop and Who Else Matters? (Institute of Child Protection Studies)
Y-Change Resources Berry Street’s Y-Change team of Lived Experience Consultants and the peak body for specialist family violence services, Safe + Equal, co-produced a resource guide to help practitioners better support children and young people who are experiencing family violence.
Heart Felt A collection of children’s experiences and stories of abuse, recovery and hope
Learning from Lived Experience A guide for professionals supporting children and young people experiencing family violence. This guide is designed to help practitioners better support children and young people with experiences of family violence.
Children’s Wellbeing Case Management Tool A guiding resource to inform and support the duration of case management and planning through conversations that represent the individual child’s voice.
Victoria’s Child Safe Standards Plain language summary of the new plain-language resources on Victoria’s Child Safe Standards
Family Violence Learning Series This webpage is an interactive and evolving learning series on family violence for practitioners seeking resources to support effective, evidence-informed, trauma-responsive practice to support children and young people affected by family violence.
To Be Loved Helping promote the prevention of mental illness amongst children and young adults exposed to physical, psychological or emotional distress as a result of parental breakdown, separation or family violence.
Supporting children to participate in evaluation This webinar is recommended for practitioners, evaluators and researchers working directly with children and who are interested in, or have responsibility for, undertaking or commissioning evaluation in their organisation.
What’s OK at Home (WOAH) A website for young people and their adult allies about family violence, why it happens, how to recognise it, and how to help others experiencing it.
Through My Eyes Booklet This Children’s Resource Program booklet provides children with helpful information and options for them to express their feelings and emotions.
Kids’ Coercive Control Web A graphic with examples of power and control to help children and young people understand coercive control
ENVISAGE Families Program Free peer support program for parents and caregivers with a child and/or children with a disability or developmental concern aged birth to eight years. The program has been co-designed with parents, carers, service providers, health professionals and researchers from Australia and Canada, and includes a dedicated First People’s stream.
Reimagine Australia Provides support, resources, training and development for families and early childhood practitioners to best enable them in their work with families of children who have additional needs.
Kids’ Coercive Control Web A graphic with examples of power and control to help children and young people understand coercive control.
YouthNav‘Get the skills to navigate to your future’. This toolkit was co-designed with members from the Victorian Youth Congress, and is an initiative of the DFFH.
Young people with disability who use violence at home“The aim of this project is to build a better understanding of individual, relationship, community context and sociocultural factors relevant for understanding young people with disability who use violence at home.
Mental Health and Service Utilisation of Young People Using Violence in the Home Webinar regarding research and practitioners identifying violence and working holistically.
The PIPA project: Positive Interventions for Perpetrators of Adolescent violence in the home (AVITH)
Australian Childhood Foundation – Children’s Voices
Office of the Advocate for Children and Young People – Participation and Voice
Victorian Commissioner for Children and Young People – Cultural safety for Aboriginal Children
Victorian Commissioner for Children and Young People – Safety of children with a disability
Victorian Commissioner for Children and Young People – Safety of children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – A brief guide to the Final Report: Disability
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – A brief guide to the Final Report: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
Developmental Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect: Implications for Intervention
Implicit measures of child abuse and neglect – A systematic review