Introducing Family Preservation in Australia: Issues in Transplanting Programs from the United States

This paper is based on a keynote address given at the first Australian Family Preservation Conference in Ballarat in November 1992 and addresses questions which need to be considered when transplanting programs from one service system context to another. A number of Australian States are in the process of introducing Intensive Family Preservation Services following the widespread adoption of such programs in the United States. These short term, intensive, home based therapeutic programs serve families whose children are at imminent risk of removal or who are being reunited with their family after being in out of home care. This paper argues that while such programs have the potential to provide more effective interventions with such families, placement avoidance on its own is an inappropriate outcome measure. Moreover, if the introduction of such programs is done by redirecting resources from other services, counterproductive effects may occur.