The Ballarat and District Aboriginal Cooperative and Cafs (Child and Family Services, Ballarat) started rolling out the family preservation and reunification response in the Ballarat region in 2021.

The 'keeping families together' program aims 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.

To mark National Child Protection Week, which starts on Sunday, Cafs announced the KFT program is a finalist at the Victorian Protecting Children Awards in the making a difference category.

Cafs foster carer Helen Sutton is a finalist in the carer category for her significant contribution to the lives of children and young people in care.

Cafs chief executive officer Wendy Sturgess said the organisation was proud of its partnership with BADAC to deliver the KFT program.

"Cafs KFT team has used this program as an opportunity to strive for excellence, grow deeper connections with our community, strengthened our partnership and relationship with BADAC and our commitment to keeping Aboriginal children out of the care system," Ms Sturgess said.

She said Cafs' role was not to remove children from their families but to hold families safely, support them through any processes and help to be their voice.

"Just as importantly, we can also offer them strategies, services, skills, counselling to help them. Our goal is to help them get reunited with their children, to give them the strength to do that work because that's really the best thing that we can offer is to keep families together and keep children out of the statutory care system," Ms Sturgess said.

"A commitment to child safety is a foundational pillar of our organisation and for our people to be recognised as part of these awards in National Children Protection Week is validation that Cafs' significant and ongoing commitment has been recognised."

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Child protection Australia 2019-20 report one in 32 children received child protection services in 2019-20, with 67 per cent being repeat clients.

One in six Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children received child protection services in 2019-20.

Over the five-year period between 2012-13 and 2016-17, the number of children receiving child protection services rose by about 25 per cent.

Ms Sturgess said the demand for Cafs' services was fairly constant, but there were more complexities within families which got into a situation where their children were removed, including family violence, drugs and alcohol and mental health and gambling issues.

"It's usually a whole range of things. What we know in Ballarat in particular is there is a lot of inter-generational trauma. It's not uncommon for us to be working with people way back in their history, for example, Aboriginal families have been impacted by the stolen generation but also for non-Aboriginal people there has often been a long family history of people being removed and that is what I refer to as inter-generational trauma," she said.

The aim of National Child Protection Week is to engage all members of the community to 'play a part' in improving child wellbeing and keep children safe in Australia.

The message of the week is 'Every child, in every community, needs a fair go'.

The Victorian Protecting Children Award winners will be announced on Wednesday, September 7.

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