New AnglicareSA program to help 92 families in Adelaide’s northern suburbs

More than 270 children facing abuse and neglect will be kept safe through a $2.8 million pilot program going into homes in Adelaide's northern suburbs.

More than 270 children facing abuse and neglect will be kept safe through a $2.8 million program working in northern suburbs homes.

AnglicareSA will help 92 families over two years in a bid to prevent 276 children from being taken into state care.

Funded by the State Government, the program will target families who have histories of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse or child protection notifications. Behavioural therapists will be sent into homes to give parents intensive, face-to-face counselling and life-skills training. Support will be available 24 hours a day for six weeks, plus a follow-up at six months. The program is being fine tuned and is expected to launch in four months.

It comes after successive inquiries, including the Nyland royal commission, have urged the Government to focus more on prevention rather than only intervening once families reach crisis point.

AnglicareSA will run a new program working with 92 families where children are at risk of abuse or neglect.

AnglicareSA chief executive officer Peter Sandeman said the program was based on a model operating in the US, known as Homebuilders. After receiving support, 80 per cent of families involved in Homebuilders kept children safe in their homes one year later. Mr Sandeman said that many parents, when faced with the risk of losing their children, “will work hard to get back on track and this program will help them do just that”.

“We know that intensive family support is effective and if children can stay safely within their birth family, then that’s by far the best place for them to be,” he said. Human Services Minister Michelle Lensink said the Government wanted to “give parents the best possible chance to look after their kids safely at home ... (to) hopefully keep family units together”.

Child protection advocate Belinda Valentine travelled to the US to meet families who had gone through the program in Seattle. “One dad told me he believed it saved his life because he had been contemplating suicide until the Homebuilders program showed him different ways of doing things,” she said.

Ms Valentine, whose granddaughter Chloe died following repeated notifications to child protection authorities, said many struggling families “don’t realise that they’re actually on the cusp of losing their kids”. “We can’t assume that parents know how to do it, we need to give them the tools. The children deserve this opportunity,” she said.