Every child has the right to a full and productive life. Under the national framework for Protecting Australia’s Children (2009), protecting children is everyone’s responsibility: Parents, communities, governments and businesses all have a role to play.
Children’s services have an important part to play in protecting children who may be at risk of harm or illness. Educators have a duty of care to protect and preserve the safety, health and wellbeing of all children in their care and must always act in their best interests. Policies have been developed at a local, state and federal level to provide a foundation for improving and maintaining the safety and wellbeing of Australia’s young people.
The purpose of this report is to analyse
Who benefits/ who is disadvantaged?
It is quite evident who is benefited from these policies. These mainstream children’s services approaches and policies emphasise children within a holistic and ecological framework. The holistic approach means looking at the whole child, that is, their identity, culture, community, age, development; all areas within the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. The holistic approach also implies that educators will have a community-focused and strength-based understanding of children’s welfare that necessitates previous attempts at early childhood education.
In addition to this with a greater understanding to the importance of culture to a child’s identity, the Aboriginal Cultural Competence Framework has provided a source where the dynamics of cultural connection can be explored. This benefits all children, including Aboriginal children and the broader community, as it represents children’s cultural needs in the following way.
Children’s cultural needs are: Cultural Expression and Events Language, cultural values, lore, beliefs and practices Country Extended family, clan and community History Symbolic (Aboriginal Cultural Framework, 2008, p19)
It is important to note that because of these six policies an increase of awareness of the needs of the child has been developed, and as such children have:
 Freedom from hunger and have protection from