
Our Stories
Turning expertise into action
At Social Care Solutions, our work is built on meaningful connections, real impact and innovative solutions. Across our key service areas, we collaborate and partner with agencies, specialists, practitioners, leaders and educators to improve outcomes for children, young people, and families. ​
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Here we share our stories and real life examples of the work we do and the difference it makes. From delivering high-quality foster and kinship care assessments to providing trauma-informed training and leading innovative sector projects, these case studies highlight our commitment to excellence in child protection. ​

Early Childhood Education
The ‘need’:
A privately operated Early Education Centre in Brisbane contacted Social Care Solutions, eager to gain additional assistance and advice for their team of Educators who were supporting some complex needs young people in their Kindy room.
The ‘solution’:
SCS worked with the EEC to gain additional funding from government to be able to spend time completing observations, providing mentoring and coaching in-person, and to build bespoke, tailored training sessions with all their team members to help respond to all children’s behaviours in a trauma-informed and child-centred manner.
The ‘outcome’:
Staff at the EEC reported feeling empowered, refreshed and re-invigorated to engage and connect with even the most complex-presenting children in their rooms. They were confident in how to proactively put in strategies and make changes to their rooms, routines and communication style in order to reduce behaviours. The educators also increased their skills in how to approach behaviours in the moment to ensure safety for everyone. The commitment by the EEC management to invest in this specialist support highlighted the value they place on their educators, on their development and wellbeing, as well as that of the children and families they support. SCS continues to provide its premier child protection mandatory training package each year – Child Protection with a Trauma Lens – as well as ad hoc advice and specialised training sessions as needed, as the EEC recognises the value of having child protection specialists train their team in-person.

FGM Convening
The 'need':
The Department of Child Safety requested an independent Family Group Meeting convenor due to a tumultuous relationship with a mum and young person, completely disengaged from working with the Department.
The 'solution':
The FGMC team at Social Care Solutions is made up of skilled practitioners who have years of experience, both working for the Department and working in other areas. This team has in depth working knowledge of the legislation and policies of the Department as well as honed skills in managing conflict, working with complex family dynamics, holding space for difficult conversations and working creatively to deliver positive outcomes for clients. The FGMC engaged with both the mum and young person and were able to do significant pre-planning work with both, as well as members of the care team, to be able to build rapport and trust.
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The 'outcome':
By offering a third party to provide a safe space, the young person really had the opportunity to share their views and identify, for the first time, their own goals. These goals were realistic and healthy, and were fully supported and endorsed by the Child Safety team. The Department’s investment in this family’s wellbeing resulted in improved communication between Mum and the young person, improved relations between the family and the Department, and a great outcome for the young person, who felt empowered, listened to, and a sense of agency in their own life.
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Training
The ‘need’:
A national non-government organisation, providing services for male perpetrators of violence, identified a need for a therapeutic training program for survivors of domestic violence. Women had expressed a desire to hear what the men were learning, and to have a safe space for their own learning about the impact of domestic and family violence.
The ‘solution’:
Social Care Solutions consulted with leaders in the organisation, program facilitators and participants to identify and clarify workshop intent and key deliverables. A practice and literature review of current national and international research relating to best practice in this area was also undertaken. The program’s content and structure were co-designed by SCS practitioners, with ongoing input from the organisation’s content experts and frontline staff. Following implementation of a pilot training series, the program was reviewed and feedback from participants and co-facilitators used to refine the product. The training series was embedded into the organisation’s training program through a Train the Trainer series, to ensure the organisation could continue to run the program workshops, after the project was complete.
The ‘outcome’:
The powerful feedback from participants included feeling ‘heard’ and ‘seen’, with the product being truly designed with and by those engaged in the service delivery. The Train-the-Trainer approach also allowed for mentoring and upskilling of internal organisation staff, which then reduced further outsourcing costs.
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Projects
The ‘need’:​
A State-based family intervention service, with multiple sites across the State, identified the need for a full program review. The organisation was eager to explore practice and service standards, to ensure quality service delivery was consistent across sites, and to complete an evaluation of whether the program was meeting funding body expectations.
The ‘solution’:
The SCS Project team completed the evaluation, reviewing documentation, visiting each site to run focus groups and interviewing frontline practitioners and service leaders. SCS developed a written report and in-person presentation regarding the findings of the evaluation project, including detailed recommendations and an implementation plan to address identified areas of vulnerability, risk and need.
The ‘outcome’:
The organisation felt the project had been completed with professionalism and integrity, with staff of all levels feeling engaged, heard and respected. They concluded the evaluation recommendations were balanced and reasonable; given the relationships built during the evaluation and the subsequent understanding of the organisation’s’ vision and business, SCS was contracted to proceed with implementing several of the recommendations.
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Individualised Placement Support (IPS)
The ‘need’:
SCS received a referral from an interstate Department for an aunt, recently approved to care for her six nieces and nephews. All six children had experienced significant domestic and family violence perpetrated by their father and multiple other paternal family members, with their mother in prison long-term for drug-related charges. Given the children were on child protection orders to a different state, the aunt was not able to access foster and kinship care support from the state in which she lived, resulting in significant emotional pressure and stress due to the high, practical care needs of such a large sibling group.
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The ‘solution’:
SCS met with the Aunt to identify areas of worry and she expressed a strong desire for assistance to help take the children to and from school and kindergarten each day, so that she could continue to work and receive an income. Youth workers were allocated morning and afternoon shifts, providing practical care for the children, helping to get them up in the morning, make breakfast, pack lunches and ensure they were taken to school each day.
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The ‘outcome’:
During the course of the first six weeks of practical support it became clear the carer had a history of her own trauma from childhood. Parenting her nieces and nephews, all with varying levels of trauma-based behaviours, was causing significant triggering and placing the complex placement at risk of ending (which would have resulted in all six being separated into alternative care placements or residential facilities). SCS advocated for additional therapeutic support for the children, and commenced Practitioner support for the aunt, providing her a space to learn more about trauma, the impact on the brain and behaviours, and how to care for the children from a trauma-informed way. This resulted in less triggering for her and in turn, the stabilising of the behaviours for the children in her care. Support was able to be re-focused on to building their natural informal network of support so as to slowly transition support from SCS to more naturally-occurring community supports for the family.
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Assessments
The ‘need’:
A kinship carer couple, supporting two children related to them, were found to have not met multiple Standards over a number of years. The relationship with the children was considered strong, however the behaviours of the carers and in some cases, the in-action of the carers, were identified as having placed the children at significant risk of harm. The children were placed in a residential due to the placement upheaval and a lack of ability to source a full time carer with the skills needed to support the children who had complex medical disabilities. The carers had made formal complaints to the Minister and were pursuing a Tribunal hearing, disagreeing with the removal. A suitability assessment was requested for an independent third party to ensure a full review and quality assessment could be completed as to the best way forward regarding the children’s placements with the couple.
The ‘solution’:
The experienced and well-trained SCS Assessor met with the couple on numerous occasions, met and interviewed the children using child-friendly tools and resources, and observed interactions between the carers and the children during family visits. The case files were reviewed in detail and the relevant professionals, including departmental case workers, support agency staff and health and education professionals engaged with the children were also interviewed in-depth. A thorough analysis of the information from multiple sources resulted in an evidence-based assessment, finding that while the carers’ attachment was positive, the risk of ongoing harm remained high without significant and long-term practical support in the home.
The ‘outcome’:
SCS presented the Assessment report to the departmental panel, advocating for a shared care model for the children. It was found to be in the children’s best interests to maintain a ‘part-time’, shared care arrangement with the current kin carers, to continue what was seen to be a positive and enduring relationship for the children, while offering a more suitable primary care placement with an alternative general carer, more skilled, trained and experienced in the ability to mee the complex needs of the children. A shared care model ensures ongoing stability for the children, maintaining of important relationships, and a stable, safe home with a specialist carer who was also then regularly receiving respite when the children went to visit their kin carers.
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