Buy Australian: A local family preservation success

The ‘new’ American solution for abused and neglected children — Intensive Family Preservation Programs — are being heavily marketed to Australians. Victoria and New South Wales have enthusiastically embraced the idea with pilot programs based on American statistics proving its value in maintaining children with their families and improving their safety. No matter that the Americans themselves warned that evaluations showed that out of home placements rate was no higher for families that did not receive the program and that the programs came from a country whose own Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect described the child protection system as a ‘national emergency’.