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ABSTRACTIt is widely acknowledged that there are significant benefits when statutory child protection agencies and parents are able to engage cooperatively with one another to ensure the well‐being of children. Despite promising innovations there are ongoing concerns that the current child protection model alienates and confuses many parents. It is hypothesized that a significant reason for this is that statutory agencies have become reliant on formalistic assessment, and as a consequence interactions with parents have become dominated by a focus on assessment‐compliance. A qualitative study of 40 parents who had recently been investigated in Australia is reported. The analysis suggests that many parents find characteristics of assessment processes intrusive and that this undermines engagement. It is concluded that there should be greater debate about the role that assessment plays in child protection practice.

A qualitative study explored the private realities of forty-five Australian Indigenous parents and carers who had experiences with child protection authorities. Interviews focused on the nature of the relationship between parents and authorities, how these regulatory encounters served to enlist or dissolve cooperation, and how child-focused outcomes could be delivered. The descriptions of encounters with authorities challenged the public hope for reconciliation between government and Indigenous Australians through reports of procedural injustice, failure by the authority to communicate and demonstrate soundness of purpose, and through lack of interest in identity affirmation and relationship building. In spite of these perceptions of integrity failings in how child protection authorities have operated, a positive role was acknowledged for authorities' future involvement, albeit with different strategies from those currently experienced. How this progression might be facilitated by principles of restorative justice and responsive regulation is discussed.

�Child protection systems are expected to scrutinise the care offered to children and to coordinate the provision of improved quality of care. They are under stress in many developed countries with burgeoning case loads and a mixture of positive and negative outcomes. Because child protection systems seek to change the course of parenting, they can be thought of as highly formalised regulatory systems that cut across one of our most entrenched informal systems how parents raise children. This paper asks whether the stress experienced by child protection workers, support agencies and families alike is associated in part with failures to satisfactorily address three basic regulatory principles: identifying the purposes of the intervention; justifying the intervention in a way that is respectful of broader principles of democratic governance; and understanding how the informal regulatory system intersects with the formal child protection system. Child protection interventions are plagued by multiple purposes that are not necessarily compatible; non-transparent processes; and a high risk of counter-productive outcomes

A qualitative study explored the private realities of forty-five Australian Indigenous parents and carers who had experiences with child protection authorities. Interviews focused on the nature of the relationship between parents and authorities, how these regulatory encounters served to enlist or dissolve cooperation, and how child-focused outcomes could be delivered. The descriptions of encounters with authorities challenged the public hope for reconciliation between government and Indigenous Australians through reports of procedural injustice, failure by the authority to communicate and demonstrate soundness of purpose, and through lack of interest in identity affirmation and relationship building. In spite of these perceptions of integrity failings in how child protection authorities have operated, a positive role was acknowledged for authorities' future involvement, albeit with different strategies from those currently experienced. How this progression might be facilitated by principles of restorative justice and responsive regulation is discussed.

�Child protection systems are expected to scrutinise the care offered to children and to coordinate the provision of improved quality of care. They are under stress in many developed countries with burgeoning case loads and a mixture of positive and negative outcomes. Because child protection systems seek to change the course of parenting, they can be thought of as highly formalised regulatory systems that cut across one of our most entrenched informal systems how parents raise children. This paper asks whether the stress experienced by child protection workers, support agencies and families alike is associated in part with failures to satisfactorily address three basic regulatory principles: identifying the purposes of the intervention; justifying the intervention in a way that is respectful of broader principles of democratic governance; and understanding how the informal regulatory system intersects with the formal child protection system. Child protection interventions are plagued by multiple purposes that are not necessarily compatible; non-transparent processes; and a high risk of counter-productive outcomes

A qualitative study explored the private realities of forty‐five Australian Indigenous parents and carers who had experiences with child protection authorities. Interviews focused on the nature of the relationship between parents and authorities, how these regulatory encounters served to enlist or dissolve cooperation, and how child‐focused outcomes could be delivered. The descriptions of encounters with authorities challenged the public hope for reconciliation between government and Indigenous Australians through reports of procedural injustice, failure by the authority to communicate and demonstrate soundness of purpose, and through lack of interest in identity affirmation and relationship building. In spite of these perceptions of integrity failings in how child protection authorities have operated, a positive role was acknowledged for authorities' future involvement, albeit with different strategies from those currently experienced. How this progression might be facilitated by principles of restorative justice and responsive regulation is discussed.