National Child Protection Week Panel
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- 11 hours ago
- 3 min read
Each year, National Child Protection Week has a theme and focus. In 2025, we are challenged and
encouraged to be engaged in ‘Shifting Conversation to Action’.
On Monday 9 September, we were delighted to co-host a powerful panel discussion during National Child Protection Week 2025, exploring how early support for families can transform child protection outcomes and prevent harm before it occurs.
Hosted in partnership with the Australian Catholic University (ACU) Institute of Child Protection Studies, this event brought together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to discuss how we can shift from awareness to action—investing in early intervention and family preservation to build stronger, safer communities.
Our speakers were:
• Zahra Al Hilaly, Manager Social Policy and Campaigns, NAPCAN
• Kylie Captain, Founder of Dream Big Education Wellbeing & Consulting
• Daryl Higgins, Director of the ACU Institute of Child Protection Studies
• Anne Hollonds, National Children Commissioner
• Susan Watson, Chief Executive Officer, Fams
• Patrick O’Reilly, Facilitator, Marist180.
We were privileged to hear from each of our panellists. Kylie shared, as a proud Gamilaroi woman, and Board Director of NAPCAN, how she is committed to championing culturally safe, community-led prevention. Kylie drew on her experience in rural and urban communities, working within and beyond systems, highlighting the strengths and gaps for First Nations people and communities, exhorting us to dream big and to stay the course.
Zahra, as Manager of Social Policy and Campaigns at NAPCAN, drew heavily on her youth and multicultural expertise. Zahra challenged us to engage the voice and perspective of each person, especially children and young people, in the design and delivery of services, that one size does not fit all. Zahra likewise highlighted the benefits of change for one person, one group, can break cycles and bring societal change and improvement.
Anne, as the National Children’s Commissioner, is responsible for monitoring policy and legislation to ensure that the human rights of children are protected and promoted. Over decades Anne has served as Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Chief Executive of government and non-government organisations focused on research, policy and practice in child and family wellbeing, and as a psychologist. Anne provided profound insights into both systemic failures and opportunities over many years and drew significantly on her 2024 report ‘Help Way Earlier!’ How Australia can transform child justice to improve safety and wellbeing’.
Our co-host Professor Daryl Higgins, Director of the Institute of Child Protection Studies at ACU, is a nationally recognised expert in child welfare research and systems reform. Daryl was one of
the lead researchers on the 2023 ground-breaking ‘Australian Child Maltreatment Study’, (ACMS) which randomly surveyed 8503 randomly selected Australians (aged 16-65+), and generated the
first nationally representative rates of all five types of child maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and exposure to domestic violence) and their associated outcomes in Australia. It makes for confronting reading:
Among 16-24 olds:
• 28.2% experience physical abuse
• 25.7% experienced sexual abuse
• 34.6% experienced emotional abuse
• 10.3% experienced neglect
• 43.8% exposure to domestic violence (EDV).
Daryl made a considered and compelling case for early intervention and systemic response that is beyond silos and is appropriately resourced. Daryl also left with the sobering statistic from the ACMS-62% of those surveyed experienced some form of abuse or neglect.
As CEO of Fams, Susan drew on her deep experience in frontline service delivery and policy reform, advocating strongly and eloquently for early intervention and family voice in child protection. Susan joined other panellists in a call to arms-abuse and/or neglect of children is, directly and/or indirectly, a blight on us all, and something we collectively must bring urgency, will and resolve to changing.
We thank ACU, our panellists and attendees, the Marist180 team who created and coordinated the event, and, in particular our Partnerships and Advocacy Coordinator, Jane Powles, who did a wonderful job in bringing the entire event to life and fruition.
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