protecting children is everybody's responsibility

One of the most important philosophical underpinnings in the area of child protection is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Australia’s child protection system is not unified but the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) endorsed the National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children. Protecting children is not just the responsibility of statutory Child protection Systems but also of parents, communities, governments and business. The national framework for protecting Australia’s children recognises the importance in partnership between Australian, State and Territory governments and non-government organisations to protect our children. The framework focuses on the idea of placing children’s interests firmly at the centre of everything we do and also promote the safety and well-being of all children. Keeping this in mind the paper intends to critically analyse and compare the practices of two adult service sectors, one being the mental health sector and second being the multicultural/refugee sector. The paper will then go on to make suggestions taken from empirical literature on how these sectors can better conceptualise and apply the notion that protecting children is everybody’s responsibility.
There is a huge overlap in the services offered by the two adult service sectors mental health and refugee sectors. Mental health problem is prevalent in both the sectors. In addition to Child Protection services and mental health concerns, the users of Mental Health sector and Refugee service sector faces common interrelated complex social issues, such as homelessness, poverty, domestic violence, disability, trauma and substance abuse (Bromfield et.al, 2010; Darlington, Feeney, & Rixon, 2004). Literature identifies ‘parenting issue’ as a common consequence in both these adult sectors. Literature identifies that, where a parent has mental health problems there may be serious child protection concerns (Darlington, Feeney, & Rixon,