In the lead up to the holiday season, we are excited to release the program for FRSA’s Child Inclusive Practice Forum, which will be held on 18-19 February 2025 in Canberra. More information about the Forum is below.

At the same time the abstract review process is coming to a close for FRSA’s National Conference 2025 and we anticipate releasing the program early in the new year. We received a record number of abstracts this year and, as always, we know we’ll be able to deliver a rich and engaging line-up of presentations.  We had promised to let those authors who had submitted abstracts know the outcome before Christmas.  We are on track to do that with emails scheduled to go out next week.

This week the Government released the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) 2024-25 and with it the increased probability of a March Federal Election in 2025.   I’ve been reflecting on ACOSS Acting CEO, Edwina MacDonald’s response. She said “The Government talks about ‘unavoidable spending’ as a negative while the Opposition calls for spending cuts. The reality is public investment in essential services is the only thing keeping jobs and incomes growing right now. It would be irresponsible to slash public spending and leave people to fend for themselves….” Edwina’s words resonate as we head into the holiday season with so many families struggling. I sincerely hope that next Budget both sides of Government can recognise the importance of investing now to lift people out of poverty and create a fairer and, frankly, more humane future for all Australians.

I wish to also acknowledge the death of former Federal Liberal MP and Minister, the Hon Kevin Andrews last weekend.  During his political career spanning over 30 years he did spend almost four years as Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services (8.12.2009 – 18.9.2013) moving over to Minister for Social Services when the Coalition won the election that year.  He held that position through until 23 December 2014 during which time he had a keen interest in the family and relationship services sector.  My condolences to his wife, Margaret and family.

This is a busy time of year for our sector and I hope all our readers manage to have some rest, respite and good times with friends and families over the festive season.

The FRSA National Office will be closed from COB Tuesday 24 December 2024 and will reopen on Thursday 2 January 2025. Contact details during this period will be available on our website – frsa.org.au.

I wish you all a safe and restful holiday season. We look forward to reconnecting with you all in 2025!

Kind regards,
Jackie Brady
FRSA Executive Director

The program for the 2025 Child Inclusive Practice Forum is now available. View or download the program via the link below. The Forum will be held at the 59 Cameron Ave Conference and Event Centre, Canberra from 18-19 February 2025

We have also extended the Early Bird rate to close on Friday, 10 January 2025! Don’t miss the opportunity to join and learn from other specialists who work to keep the best interests of children at the forefront of Family Dispute Resolution (mediation) and child and family services.

Early Bird Registration Fees until 10 January 2025

Standard Registration Fees From 11 January 2025 

FRSA has extended the closing date for our Member Survey on the range of targeted intervention programs for people who use violence delivered by the FRSA Membership. The new closing date is 11:59pm (AEDT) Friday, 10 January 2025.

If you are an FRSA member and think the survey might be relevant to your organisation, please read the information sheet, which provides more detail about the survey and what we mean by targeted intervention programs and gives an opportunity to preview the survey questions.

Get Involved!

We know that holding consultation forums with members in January is far from optimal but with the Department handing down an end of January deadline for submissions into its current Consultation process – we have no option.

FRSA will be holding three online member discussions, on a program basis, to inform our response to the DSS consultation – Review of Children, Youth and Parenting Programs. You can register for the discussions by clicking on the links below.

• Children and Parenting Support (CaPS): 2:00 – 3:30pm (AEDT), Tuesday 14 January 2025
• Communities for Children Facilitating Partner (CfC FP): 2:00 – 3:30pm (AEDT) Wednesday 15 January 2025
• Family Mental Health Support Services (FMHSS): 2:00 – 3:30pm (AEDT), Thursday 16 January 2025

More information about the consultation, including the discussion paper, is available on the DSS Engage website. If you are participating in one of these member discussions – you are asked to read through the discussion paper as conversation will focus on the themes and questions as presented.

If you have any questions or points of clarification, please call the FRSA National Office on 02 6162 1811.

(Please note: The FRSA Office will be closed 25 December 2024 and will re-open Thursday 2 January 2025).

If you missed the final two webinars in our First Nations focus on Family and Relationship services series, Aboriginal Community Education Officer Engagement presented by Lorelle Bennett and Jayde Milburn from Anglicare SA and Developing Cultural Competence and Cultural Safety in Katherine, NT presented by Eugenie Collyer from The Smith Family, you can watch the recordings below. Or rewatch all the webinars from the series on our FRSA Webinars page.

The Attorney-General, the Hon Mark Dreyfus KC MP, has released the Second Annual Report on the progress made by governments under the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse 2021—2030.

The National Strategy  provides a nationally coordinated, strategic framework for preventing and responding to child sexual abuse. It seeks to reduce the risk, extent and impact of child sexual abuse and related harms in Australia.

The Second Annual Report covers the period from January to December 2024 and presents an implementation update on the 62 measures under the National Strategy’s First Action Plans. It also includes an update on the implementation of the 122 Royal Commission recommendations that are either partially or wholly directed at the Australian Government.

The Second Annual Report is available here.

A new report by ACOSS has found entry-level jobs have declined while long-term unemployment has significantly increased.

The Faces of Unemployment report examines the profile of people affected by unemployment and receiving income support – people relying on the $56 a day JobSeeker Payment and even lower Youth Allowance (Other).

The report found that since interest rates began to rise in mid-2022, employment at the lowest skill level has lagged, increasing only 1.9% compared with 7.8% overall. Job vacancies for that skill level have dropped by 39% compared to a 30% decline overall.

In that period, the number of people unemployed or underemployed per job vacancy increased from 2.9 to 4.9.

ACOSS has set out a number of policy asks to support people to secure paid work.

New findings from headspace’s new National Family Mental Health Survey reveal that family members believe connecting with friends (41%) and family (39%) has the most positive effect on their young people’s mental health.

Almost half of families (45%) are talking to their young people about mental health at least weekly. Families surveyed told headspace these conversations were most commonly about managing stress or pressure (62%).

With the holidays approaching, headspace’s National Clinical Advisor Caroline Thain said that while this time of year can be a nourishing time to spend with family, they can also be tough for many young people.

“Family relationships can be complex, and the holidays are often a time when different beliefs or old conflicts rear their heads,” Ms Thain said.

“It’s important for young people and their family to start having conversations ahead of Christmas, so everyone is aware of the pressures that are being experienced and take some steps to look after one another. For example, taking time to set some expectations about gift giving might take the pressure off young people who are feeling the weight of financial burden at this time of year.”

Key findings:

• Connecting with friends (41%) and family (39%) has the most positive effect on young people’s mental health, according to their families.
• Young people said the same, with one third (30%) saying spending time with friends (17%) or family (13%) was the best thing that had happened to them that week.
• When asked where they find support for their young people, parent and carers said friends (54%) and family members (47%) provide the most support in helping manage their young person’s mental health and wellbeing.

Read more

The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) 2024-25 has been released, providing the required updated economic and fiscal outlook from the previous Budget.

MYEFO 2024-25 shows a smaller budget deficit than anticipated, sitting at $26.9 billion – $1.3 billion lower than Budget.

According to the Australian Government:

• Average real spending growth will be 1.5 per cent over the six years to 2027-28, which is less than half the 30-year average
• $14.6 billion in savings and reprioritisations have been identified, with a total of $92 billion since the election.
• 78 per cent of upwards revisions to revenue since the election have been returned.

You can access the MYEFO here.

New research – The criminalisation of coercive control: A national study of victim‑survivors’ views on the need for, benefits, risks and impacts of criminalisation – by the Australian Institute of Criminology has found that victim-survivors support the criminalisation of coercive control.

The national study explored victim-survivors’ views on the benefits, risk and impacts of the criminalisation of coercive control.

Centring the views of victim-survivors, the report explores the reasons why the majority of victim-survivors who participated in this study supported the criminalisation of coercive control, their views on perpetrator accountability and the punishment of people who used coercive control, and the often-shared recognition among victim-survivors of the limits of criminalisation and the harms of the criminal legal system.

The National Carer Strategy 2024-2034 was launched on 10 December 2024.

The Strategy is a framework for co-designing, developing and delivering a suite of actions to holistically improve the lives of carers.

The Strategy was designed and created with carers. It will guide how we can improve support for carers now, and into the future. It is a positive step towards improving awareness of carers including:

• their roles
• the impacts of supporting others
• availability of carer supports and services.

To ensure the vision of the Strategy is realised, the Australian Government will seek to work with state and territory governments who share responsibility for the delivery of services carers rely on.

In our last edition of the eBulletin we reported that the Family Law Amendment Bill 2024 was passed in Parliament. On 10 December 2024, the Family Law Amendment Act 2024 received Royal Assent.

The Act makes significant reforms to Australia’s family law system with a focus on property and financial matters. Some of the measures came into effect on 11 December, whilst other measures will come into effect in 6 months’ time.

The following measures have commenced:

Schedule 3

• Part 3 – Commonwealth Information Orders
• Part 4 – Operation of section 69GA of the Family Law Act

Schedule 4

• Part 2 – Court rule making power for Family Court of a State, and
• Parts 3 and 4 – changes to the family law superannuation splitting framework

The following measures commence in 6 months, on 10 June 2025:

Schedule 1

• Part 1 – Property framework
• Part 2 – Principles for conducting property or other non-child-related proceedings
• Part 3, Division 1 – Duty of disclosure
• Part 3, Division 2 – Arbitration

Schedule 2 – Children’s Contact Services

Schedule 3

• Part 1A – Removing limitation on application for divorce
• Part 1 – Attending family dispute resolution before applying for Part VII order
• Part 2 – Attendance at divorce proceedings

Schedule 4

• Part 1 – Costs orders
• Part 5 – Protecting sensitive information.

The amendments in Part 1 of Schedule 1 include changes to the framework for resolving the property and financial aspects of relationship breakdown to better recognise the impact of family violence. From 10 June 2025, these changes will apply to new and existing proceedings, except where a final hearing has commenced.

On 5 December, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services released its inquiry report into financial services regulatory framework in relation to financial abuse.

Through the inquiry the committee uncovered the multifaceted nature of financial abuse, including its impact on superannuation, and the devastating impacts on child support arrangements.

The report calls for comprehensive reforms across multiple sectors to address financial abuse. The committee made 61 recommendations aimed at both preventing and mitigating the impact of financial abuse.

More about the inquiry, including the final report are available here.

Consultation on the draft National Plan to End the Abuse and Mistreatment of Older People 2024-2034 opened on 12 December 2024.

The development of the draft National Plan was informed by:

• the independent evaluation of the first National Plan to Respond to the Abuse of Older Australians (Elder Abuse) 2019-2023
• the findings of a national consultation process undertaken by Elder Abuse Action Australia (EAAA).

The draft National Plan consists of:

• a 10-year term, which will be underpinned by two 5-year action plans
• an ambitious vision framed in terms of ending (rather than responding to) elder abuse, consistent with the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-2032
• a human rights focus and a cross-portfolio approach to addressing underlying issues
• a clear commitment to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the plan and report publicly on implementation milestones.

More information about the consultation is available on the Attorney-General’s Department website. Submissions close 17 February 2024.

On 12 December, the Attorney-General the Hon Mark Dreyfus KC MP announced the appointment of Ms Dianne Simpson as a Judge of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 1).

Ms Simpson graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Arts in 1992. In 1993, she was admitted as a legal practitioner to the Supreme Court of Victoria. Ms Simpson became an Accredited Specialist in family law in New South Wales in 2009.

The Senate Select Committee on Measuring Outcomes for First Nations Communities was appointed by resolution of the Senate on 28 November 2024.

The committee will inquire into the current regression of the Closing the Gap targets on the rates of suicide, the number of children in out-of-home care, adult incarceration and the number of children commencing school who are developmentally on track.

The closing date for submissions is Friday, 28 February 2025. The committee is due to report by 30 May 2025.

More information is available here.

Relationships Australia has released its 2024 Relationship Indicators research report, the study providing insights into the state of relationships in Australia.

Building on the 2022 survey, the research offers a detailed examination of how relationships have evolved during these challenging times.

Key findings highlight the widespread pressures impacting Australian relationships in 2024:

• 79% of Australians faced relationship challenges in the past six months
• 27% report cost of living as their primary relationship pressure
• 23% report feeling lonely

These challenges signal a broader shift in our social fabric that requires a coordinated and comprehensive response. The 2024 Relationship Indicators report highlights that relationship satisfaction has direct implications for mental health, domestic violence prevention, and community wellbeing – areas that are often viewed separately but are intrinsically connected through the lens of relationship health. Read the full report.

Last week Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA) announced the appointment of Dr Jerry Nockles as its new Executive Director, effective 13 January 2025.

He takes over from Ron Johnson who was Acting Executive Director for the last six months after previous Executive Director, Monique Earsman, stepped down from the role in May.

Dr Nockles has spearheaded policy and advocacy efforts at World Vision Australia and UNICEF Australia.  He has also held senior academic positions at Stanford University and George Washington University.

With a PhD in political science and international relations from the Australian National University (ANU), and more than 20 years’ experience in the Royal Australian Navy, Dr Nockles has a reputation as a skilled and visionary leader capable of navigating complex and dynamic environments, building high-performing teams, and delivering exceptional results.

FRSA looks forward to working with Dr Nockles in his new role. Read more.

Last week, Elizabeth Neville was appointed the new Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies for a 5-year term.

Elizabeth has been acting in the role since June 2023. Prior to this she was a senior executive at the National Disability Insurance Agency, leading the establishment of the Children’s Taskforce, and formerly leading the government and markets divisions.

She previously worked in state government and in professional advisory services, and had an early career in frontline service delivery and advocacy for peak body organisations in the not-for-profit sector. With a background in disability, aged care and community services Liz has qualifications in social work, education and evaluation.

Elizabeth said she was thrilled to be leading an organisation that makes such an important contribution to the wellbeing of Australian families.

“It is an honour to be entrusted to build on AIFS’ proud 44-year history putting families at the centre, deeply understanding the issues that impact them, and building a strong evidence base to inform policy and practice in the sector,” Elizabeth said. Read more.

Liz Hefren-Webb has been appointed as the new Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner, commencing January 20 2025.

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner is a critical role in leading the national regulator of aged care, protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of older people.

Liz is an experienced leader with an extensive background in social policy and programs, many of which are underpinned by regulatory frameworks. She brings strong strategic capabilities and highly developed stakeholder engagement and decision-making skills.

She is currently Deputy Secretary, Social Policy, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. She has previously held senior leadership roles at the Department of Social Services and other Australian Government agencies. Her leadership in areas such as the National Redress Scheme and the COVID-19 pandemic response has involved complex and sensitive consumer and stakeholder engagement. Read more

This project aims to build understanding of the extent to which young people’s use of intimate partner violence (IPV) can be understood as distinct from adult-perpetrated violence, and how services and agencies across Australia are responding to this cohort.

Part of this research involves a national survey, developed by Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS), of service providers working in services and/or agencies across Australia that deliver or refer to services to young people.

The project is being led by the Centre for Innovative Justice (CIJ) RMIT University. It is delivered in partnership with Drummond Street Services’ Centre for Family Research and Evaluation (CFRE), and AIFS.

Read the participant information sheet and/or complete the survey.

The Australian Children’s Contact Services Association (ACCSA) 2025 Forum will be held at The Hotel Grand Chancellor Hobart Convention and Exhibition Centre in Tasmania on 25-26 March 2025.

The Forum theme is, Creating a Safer, Stronger Sector in the Best Interests of the Child.

Download the flyer to find out more information, register via the ACCSA website and stay tuned for announcements regarding speakers and topics.

Reconciliation Australia has announced the theme for National Reconciliation Week (NRW) 2025 theme, Bridging Now to Next.

The theme reflects the ongoing connection between past, present and future. Bridging Now to Next urges us to look ahead and continue the push forward as past lessons guide us. At a time when Australia faces uncertainty in its reconciliation journey, this theme calls on all Australians to step forward together.

National Reconciliation Week – 27 May to 3 June every year – is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to recommit ourselves to reconciliation and the fight for First Nations justice in Australia.

Assets, activity, and information will be released in February 2025. Keep an eye on the National Reconciliation Week page for updates.

Organisation are invited to apply to deliver projects under the Families and Communities Program: Strong and Resilient Communities Activity – Inclusive Communities (SARC – IC) Round 4 Grants from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2027.

The SARC – IC grants aim to support vulnerable and disadvantaged people on pathways to self-reliance and empowerment through local, community-driven solutions that support them to participate socially and economically by providing grant funding for one-off, time limited projects of up to 2 years, with a focus on:

• Young people aged 12 to 18 years who are disengaged, or at risk of disengaging, from education to reconnect with their community, school, training and/or employment.
• People with disability to participate in the community, and work towards becoming or remaining independent and engaged in the economy and/or society.
  Women who experience, or are at risk of experiencing, isolation, or discrimination to participate in the community and/or economy and increase their self-agency.
• People who are unemployed to increase participation in their community and/or increase their capacity to engage in employment, training, or existing employment services.

Applications are now open and close 9pm AEDT on Thursday 20 February 2025. Find out more on GrantConnect.

We’re already getting hit with hot summer temperatures. For people living in poorly designed homes who aren’t able to run fans and air-conditioning that could mean that they’re facing indoor temperatures of over 45 degrees.

This summer ACOSS is running a survey in partnership with First Nations Clean Energy Network and National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing Association to understand the impacts of heat on people experiencing financial stress.

The survey will form the basis of an ACOSS report to be shared with media and politicians. Click here to complete or share the survey

If you have any events you’d like listed on the FRSA Events and Training Calendar or job vacancies you’d like listed on the FRSA Jobs Board, email Communications Officer, Vanessa Lam at communications@frsa.org.au. Please note that posting onto the FRSA website is reserved for FRSA Members only.

If you have an news item or event that you would like to be featured in a future eBulletin please submit your announcement via the form below or email communications@frsa.org.au with the subject “FRSA eBulletin submission”.

Please note FRSA members receive priority for items posted in the eBulletin. And to keep information current, relevant and useful, submissions will not be repeated from week to week.