Childhood abuse, limited intervention and homelessness: Pathways to the mental health and justice systems

This paper explores a major pathway that lead people into the ranks of the homeless, the mental health and the justice systems ‐ abuse as a child followed by time in the care of the state. The focus is on Australia with particular emphasis on the Australian state of Victoria as a case example and on the child welfare systems which produce these outcomes. The author argues that child welfare analyses are usually too narrow in their focus. The paper examines the history of the development of child welfare systems in Australia since white settlement in the various colonies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The author demonstrates some of the wide variety of factors that produce the many negative child welfare outcomes. The original focus of child welfare systems in Australia were largely on social control of the street behaviours of children and the perceived immoral behaviour of their parents, especially their mothers. The developing systems further featured parsimonious service provision, limited visions for the future of the children, and exploitation of their labour. Swings to and from institutional and foster care as the key program responses were usually based on inadequacies of previous systems, the perceived need to control costs, and the perceived inadequacies of the non‐government service providers, rather than careful analysis of and response to the needs of children. Service redevelopment and especially reliance on family support in the late twentieth century has occurred while the traditional issues and problems, including abuse of children in care, remain current and unresolved. The development of managerialist public service practices in recent decades has added to the traditional isolation and lack of integration of the various child welfare components and actively hindered the development of an integrated system. An emphasis on minimal intervention, together with the other factors, has produced a situation in which children are frequently left at risk by the very systems supposed to protect them. The author concludes that not only do the lessons and mistakes of history need to be heeded, but that the principles, programs and management practices of child welfare need to be seen in combination as the factors which set child welfare clients on the road to homelessness or mental health and justice facilities.