Automatic language translation
Our website uses an automatic service to translate our content into different languages. These translations should be used as a guide only. See our Accessibility page for further information.
The primary objective of Family Preservation is to keep children safe at home with their families, and prevent removal, placement in OOHC, and future contact with the child protection system. Family Preservation also aims to support children and families to achieve wider social benefits, including better educational attainment and improved health and wellbeing indicators.
The Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) is redesigning the Family Preservation service system in NSW to improve the outcomes, experience, suitability, and accessibility for families who want to access and would benefit from working with a Family Preservation service. For Aboriginal children, young people, and families this also means increasing culturally safe and responsive and community-led services that centre family-led decision making.
At its heart, this redesign is seeking to make Family Preservation services more responsive to family needs, and more effective at supporting families to achieve outcomes.
We have been working with the sector through the recommissioning process on the redesign in readiness for new contracts in July 2025. Based on extensive engagement with service providers, peak bodies, and DCJ colleagues from across the state, seven guiding principles have been developed to underpin the new design and continual system improvement of Family Preservation, over time.
The principles are:
We are now seeking submissions from stakeholders on the proposed Family Preservation design, which has been set out in the Redesigning Family Preservation in NSW Discussion Paper (PDF, 1.5 MB) .
The purpose of the Discussion Paper is to test key proposed changes across the system and elicit feedback from service providers currently delivering Family Preservation, service providers interested in delivering Family Preservation, DCJ colleagues, peak bodies, and interested parties.
The paper proposes a number of changes - some of the proposals will need to be settled in advance of procurement activity in the second half of 2024, some will need to be settled to include as provisions in contracts with service providers (commencing July 2025), and others will be developed and iterated through the life of the new five-year contract period and beyond.
Submissions will be open for six weeks from Thursday 4 April to Friday 17 May. There are three ways you can make your submissions:
We are expecting a large volume of submissions and encourage stakeholders to make submissions via the online submission form to help manage the analysis of the feedback, however we understand that some stakeholders may want to do this via email. If you are unable to make a written submission, please contact the email address above to make alternative arrangements.
Family Preservation peak bodies are also available to support their members to make submissions. Please contact your relevant peak body to find out more information.
Once submissions close, we will analyse the feedback and set out which elements of the new system design are settled and which remain open for further development, consultation, and codesign. We will also set out the timescales and collaboration mechanisms.
We held a Discussion Paper online sector briefing on Thursday 11 April. If you were unable to attend or if you would like to watch it again, you can do so here.
The redesign presents an opportunity to more purposefully select a suite of services that are responsive to the dynamic needs, strengths, and characteristics of families, and that are more likely to help keep children safe and with their families. We propose keeping some models from the current suite of Family Preservation suite. These models include:
These models have either demonstrated some evidence of effectiveness internationally and in NSW (MST-CAN and FFT-CAN) or has emerging evidence as the only holistic Aboriginal community developed and imbedded model (Nabu).
We also propose introducing two new Family Preservation frameworks:
4. Families Together
5. Aboriginal Family Preservation, to be exclusively delivered by ACCOs.
The Aboriginal Family Preservation and Families Together frameworks present service providers with greater freedom and flexibility to design, codesign, and deliver responsive and effective supports that are tailored to the needs, strengths, characteristics, motivations, goals, and complexities of families.
The Aboriginal Family Preservation framework has been developed with AbSec , the peak organisation for Aboriginal children and families in NSW, in partnership with Aboriginal families, community and ACCO service providers. It presents very first statewide opportunity for ACCOs to take the lead in developing models that are community-led, self-determined, and culturally safe.
We propose adopting a simplified eligibility, suitability, and prioritisation process. This means slightly narrowing the types of families who are eligible for Family Preservation service and focusing on a family’s suitability in order to target finite resources. As a standard rule, service providers must be able to work with families who are experiencing mental health, drug and alcohol misuse, and domestic and family violence in the home.
We propose best practice processes at the three referral pathways. We propose minor amendments to community referral and triage referral pathways. The most significant proposal is the change for referrals of from DCJ caseworkers with an allocated case.
We have been working with the sector on the redesign since mid-2022 to build a joint understanding of the challenges and opportunities of the current system.
We held stakeholder workshops with a range of practice and operational representatives from DCJ districts and ACCO and non-ACCO Family Preservation service providers across NSW.
The workshops generated discussion among stakeholders and elicited their reflections on the challenges and common problems with the current service system, examples of good practice, and ideas about how the system could be improved.
The extensive feedback was analysed by the Family and Community Services Insights, Analysis and Research (FACSIAR) team within DCJ, and published in a Family Preservation What We Heard (PDF, 4.0 MB) paper.
We also partnered with AbSec to deliver ‘Listen and Learn’ workshops, held in person and on Country, with a range of Aboriginal stakeholders, non-Aboriginal ACCO staff, and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal DCJ staff to better understand their experiences of Family Preservation in NSW. This feedback was analysed by AbSec with DCJ and published in the Aboriginal Family Preservation What We Heard (PDF, 2.6 MB) paper. This paper offers insights into where improvements can be made to the system for Aboriginal families and represents the views of the people who were consulted
April 2023 - July 2024: Finalising new Family Preservation design
Following a six-week consultation period, feedback from the Redesigning Family Preservation in NSW Discussion Paper will be analysed and inform the final design choices.
August 2024 – December 2024: Consultation and procurement activity commences
Further consultation with the sector on continuous system improvements and transition support is undertaken, as well as procurement activity for the new Family Preservation design commences.
January 2025 – March 2025: Tender evaluation and contract negotiations
Tenders submitted by service providers are evaluated and contract negotiations for the new Family Preservation design commence.
April 2025 – July 2025: Contracts awarded
Service providers are awarded contracts for the new Family Preservation design are awarded and signed.
26 Apr 2024