More than 150 child protection experts including people with direct experience will meet in Port Augusta today and tomorrow for a symposium on transforming how we support and empower children engaged with the system.

The South Australian Child Protection and Family Support Symposium puts a spotlight on the complex challenges children and families face and how we respond in regional and remote communities.

Keynote speakers include Director of Australian Catholic University’s Institute of Child Protection Studies Professor Daryl Higgins who was Chief Investigator for the first national study of the prevalence in Australia of child abuse and neglect and its health outcomes – the groundbreaking Australian Child Maltreatment Study.

Commissioner for Aboriginal Child and Young People Dale Agius will also address the audience, and there will be panel discussions and showcasing of successful child protection and family support work across the regions.

Esteemed South Australian of the Year, and Director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection, Professor Leah Bromfield, will emcee the event.

The symposium builds on the momentum of events held over the past two years, to encourage a whole-of-community, whole of sector and whole of government approach to reforming and strengthening child protection and family support in SA.

Since the first symposium in 2023, a vast range of initiatives and programs have bolstered supports for families and decreased the growth of children and young people coming into care.

These have included improved peer supports, through the establishment of new youth advisory councils, the impact of the Councils for the Minister to hear directly from birth and carer families, a network of events, training and workshops for carers, increasing the use of family group conferencing and bolstering our Finding Families and reunification programs to help children safely stay with family.

Quotes

Attributable to Katrine Hildyard

Many South Australian families are facing complex and intergenerational issues that mean they need help creating safe environments for children – our government is determined to help address them.

This important symposium will bring together people with the knowledge and experience to help us better support those families.

We know children and their families and the services that support them can experience unique challenges across regional and remote communities. We also know that those communities also have unique strengths to meet them.

It’s absolutely critical that we hear the voices of children, young people, birth and carer families impacted, along with those working to support them, as we strengthen and reform the child protection and family support system in ways that help improve the lives of children in every corner of our state.

This symposium is an excellent opportunity to bring together the whole community, deepen our understanding of challenges and opportunities ahead, and how we can transform the system through understanding and embracing innovative and impactful family support initiatives and reform together.

Attributable to Professor Leah Bromfield

We struggle across our state to meet the level of need among children and families. This is more profound in the regions where there are less services – particularly specialised services.

Smaller communities often demonstrate great strengths – people know each other, professionals talk, services on the ground work creatively to meet need, community members step up and fill the gaps.

At the 2025 Child Protection and Family Support Symposium in Port Augusta, we will learn about the unique strengths and challenges in supporting families and keeping children safe in regional South Australia.

As we continue to grow the evidence to transform our approach to child protection, our future system needs to be designed to meet the needs of all children and families – whether they live in cities or regional centres.

Attributable to Jackie Bray, CE Department for Child Protection

From a panel discussion on Family Group Conferencing to discussions with long-serving regional carers, this year’s symposium will showcase the unique nature of protection work across regional South Australia.

Child protection work in regional and remote areas can be very challenging, and I’m looking forward to hearing more from symposium participants about the innovative solutions they have employed to best support children and young people in their areas.

I’m so pleased to see some of the country’s best minds in child protection coming together in Port Augusta, and grateful to the young people, carers and family members prepared to share their personal stories to help us build a stronger system.