Ballarat and District Aboriginal Cooperative, in partnership with Cafs, has been leading the family preservation and reunification response in the Ballarat region.

The program's vision is to reduce the number of aboriginal children in out of home care by working with families to prevent child protection involvement and to reunite split families faster.

The Family Matters 2021 report reveals the 'disproportionate surveillance and intervention' in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island families by child protections systems has continued to rise.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are more than 10 times more likely to be removed and growing up in out-of-home care or on permanent third-party orders, the report released on Thursday reveals.

BADAC Koorie Family Services manager Aunty Leah Keegan said historically, children were removed and families had no voice in decision making, but this new response put family's voices at the forefront.

"Our families have never had the chance to be a part of decision making in the past," she said.

"This program is very important in terms of reunification and preservation of our families and them not just going into the system and being lost.

"Historically our families have been ripped apart and that is ongoing for us to try to heal the community.

"Our families don't know how to be families, some of them. We need to help them in that sense of what a family is."

RELATED COVERAGE: 'A lot of our parents grew up in care': program changes the future for Aboriginal families

BADAC staff supported one young mum who had grown up in the child protection system when she was pregnant with her first child.

"There was a lot of trauma in the family," BADAC Koorie Family Services team leader Nathan Finley said.

"The child's father was locked up. We worked with her prior to giving birth, right through to now she is in uni, looking at work and the child is happy and healthy.

"She has met someone else, is having another baby and now there is no child protection involvement. That was a success story."

"There is another very young mum who still has her child and has maintained her independence and she was another one who was in the system as a child," Ms Keegan said.

"That is what we are aiming for, that the kids don't have that tag on them. The grandparents are really proud of those kids."

RELATED COVERAGE: BADAC's first early childhood centre Perridak Burron to open

More than 21,500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were in out-of-home care as of 30 June 2020, which represents one in every 15.6 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children living in Australia.

Of those children, 79 per cent live permanently away from their birth parents.

The highest rate of over-representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care in 2019-20 was in Western Australia, followed closely by Victoria.

Mr Finley said staff in the family preservation and reunification response were given more time to work intensively and build rapport and trust with families, with 240 support hours available per family.

The program has been running since September 2020 and staff have worked with 13 families.

Families can be referred to the program from other services and a Department of Health and Human Services staff member works to identify families in the child protection system who would benefit.

Cafs and BADAC ran the program for phase one and the state government has boosted funding and is now rolling it out to other organisations across the state.

Cafs team leader Keeping Families Together Bernadette Keogh said families were engaging and leading conversations on what change they needed to make.

She said this was in contrast to being told what to do by child protection staff in the past.

"We are working at a lot slower pace than in the past. They identify own needs, we tackle the bigger issues as well. It is about engagement to bring about change," Ms Keogh said.

"A lot of the time these families haven't had their story heard. That has been the biggest thing, to listen."

Mr Finley said the families needed to be ready to engage, but when they were ready, staff had seen success.

"Child protection close, they are out of their lives and the families are able to have more kids without child protection involvement," he said.

"It is breaking a big cycle."

RELATED COVERAGE: BADAC launches website to tell story of its first 40 years

Support can start with staff building trust, providing transport to help parents attend appointments and having more difficult conversations, like encouraging alcohol and drug or mental health support.

Staff can refer to other BADAC services, which provides a culturally-safe space and gives families confidence to engage.

"Many families have never talked about their trauma before, so us getting them into that space has been huge really," Ms Keegan said.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were less likely to be reunified with their birth families, with 15 per cent reunified in 2019-20 compared to 21 per cent of non-Indigenous children, data reveals.

Children are predominantly placed with non-Indigenous carers, with the proportion of children with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers dropping from 53 per cent to 42 per cent between 2013 and 2020.

The National Agreement on Closing the Gap committed to reducing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children's over-representation in out-of-home care by 45 per cent by the year 2031.

Despite improvements to the system, the Family Matters report reveals investment in prevention, family supports and restoration continue to be dwarfed by resourcing for intervention across Australia.

"Nationally, 16 cents in every child protection dollar is spent on supporting families to stay safely together, while 84 cents is spent chasing the losses of a system predicated on removal," the report said.

Have you signed up to The Courier's variety of news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in Ballarat.