Thursday, March 19, 2026

11:40 AM - 12:20 PM

Adelaide Oval - William Magarey room

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Overview

Presented by: Emily James - Nugel Practice Training Lead (Aboriginal Children in Aboriginal Care) Program and Blake Keating - Senior Program Manager - Western Metropolitan Nugel (Aboriginal Children in Aboriginal Care) Program. The Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency (VACCA)

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Details

There have long been concerns over conventional approaches to risk assessment and their role in the continued overrepresentation of Aboriginal children and families in child protection systems. Rooted in Western worldviews, these approaches often overlook how history, trauma, and structural inequality shape life circumstances, and fail to recognise the cultural strengths, connections, and resilience that keep Aboriginal children, families and communities strong and thriving. In Victoria, as Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) are taking on greater statutory child protection responsibilities through the transfer of authority, rethinking risk has become a core part of work to transform the existing child protection system towards an Aboriginal-led system grounded in Aboriginal ways of knowing, being, and doing. As such, the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency (VACCA) have developed Strengthening Safety Together – an Aboriginal-led, culturally grounded framework and set of tools guiding information gathering, analysis, and decision-making across delegated child protection and broader child and family services. Grounded in VACCA's Cultural Therapeutic Ways, a whole-of-agency practice framework which integrates culture, trauma-informed practice, and self-determination, Strengthening Safety Together reframes risk assessment as a strengths-based practice - still rigorous in ensuring safety – but emphasizing a collaborative and creative process of finding solutions, building on existing strengths of families and communities, and taking actions together. This presentation shares the story of how Strengthening Safety Together was developed, the challenges of navigating existing systems, key lessons learned, and emerging outcomes. It demonstrates that when Aboriginal families and communities are supported as active partners, risk assessment moves beyond a narrow focus on identifying and controlling risk — and becomes a pathway for healing and restoring the community of care around the child. This approach aims to strengthen families and communities in their rightful roles in the care, protection, and guidance of their own children — today and for future generations to come.