What the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle Actually Requires From OOHC Providers

What the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle NSW actually requires

The Aboriginal Child Placement Principle NSW (ACPP) is the legal and policy framework that governs where Aboriginal children go when they cannot live with their birth families. It applies to every OOHC provider in the state. It requires five things: prevention, partnership, placement, participation, and connection. Getting any one of them wrong is not a compliance footnote. It is a failure with real consequences for a child's safety, identity, and wellbeing.

Most content about the ACPP is written for caseworkers. This post is about what it requires from providers.

The numbers that make this urgent

43.5% of children in out-of-home care in NSW are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. That is 7,555 children as of 30 June 2024, making them 9.2 times more likely to be in care than non-Indigenous children, despite Aboriginal young people making up only 7.8% of the 10-17-year-old population in NSW.

Only 5.5% of child protection funding went to Aboriginal community-controlled organisations in 2022-23. Only 13.4% went to early and preventative supports.

Just over one in five of those 7,555 children has an ACCO providing their casework. The other four in five are managed by DCJ or mainstream NGO providers.

These are the conditions the ACPP is supposed to address. They are getting worse, not better.

The five elements and what they require from providers

The ACPP is not a checklist. It is a framework with five interconnected elements, each of which creates specific obligations for organisations delivering OOHC services.

Prevention

Prevention means reducing the number of Aboriginal children entering the care system in the first place. For providers, that means active engagement with early support services rather than waiting for a formal referral. It means being embedded in the community, not operating as an external service that Aboriginal families access reluctantly. It means contributing to wraparound supports so families can stay together.

NSW is underperforming here. The state spends 13.4% of its child protection budget on prevention and early intervention, below the national average of 15.5%. ACCOs are not adequately resourced to fill the gap.

Partnership

Partnership means meaningful involvement of Aboriginal communities and ACCOs in decisions about Aboriginal children. This is not symbolic consultation. The standard is active effort to involve community at every stage of the case.

For providers, partnership means having formal relationships with Aboriginal community leaders, elders, and organisations. It means your cultural support planning process is co-designed with the community, not drafted by non-Aboriginal staff. Community has genuine input into how care is delivered, not just notification that a decision has been made.

Placement

Placement is the element most people know and most frequently misapply. When an Aboriginal child cannot stay with their birth family, the placement hierarchy is:

With an Aboriginal family member

With an Aboriginal family known to the child

With an Aboriginal family in the community

With a non-Aboriginal family committed to the child's ongoing connection to culture and community

Moving down this hierarchy requires documented "active efforts" at each step. Not reasonable efforts. Active efforts. The distinction matters. A caseworker cannot simply record that no Aboriginal placement was available and move on. They must demonstrate a genuine, documented search: consultation with community members, contact with Aboriginal organisations, exhausted options at each tier.

That places a direct obligation on providers. If you are at tier 3 or 4, you need to be prepared for scrutiny. If you are an Aboriginal-led provider capable of operating at tier 1, 2, or 3, there is a shortage of you, and the system knows it.

Participation

Participation means Aboriginal children and young people are involved in decisions about their own care. Their views must be sought. Their cultural support plans must reflect their input. This is not procedural. It is about genuine agency for children who have already experienced significant disruption.

For providers, participation means your intake, assessment, and case planning processes are structured to seek and document the child's voice. Your staff are trained to create conditions where a child feels safe enough to express a view. Cultural support plans are reviewed regularly with the child's involvement, not filed and forgotten.

Connection

Connection means maintaining the child's relationship to family, community, culture, and Country throughout their time in care and after. It means sibling contact, participation in cultural activities, maintained relationships with elders and family members, and a plan for what happens when the child transitions out of care.

The data on connection in NSW is confronting. Of all Aboriginal children who exited care in 2022-23, only 16.2% were reunified with their birth family. 39.5% exited to "other circumstances." The state reunification rate is 15.2%, the lowest in the country.

Connection is not a program you add. It is a practice that has to be embedded in every decision made about a child's care from day one.

Where the compliance gap actually sits right now

The gap is not in providers' intent. Most OOHC providers would describe their service as culturally safe and ACPP-compliant.

The gap is in implementation and accountability.

The NSW Auditor General found in June 2024 that "DCJ has not established governance and accountability mechanisms to ensure compliance with statutory safeguards for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families." The report described "system-wide non-compliance."

The NSW Ombudsman found in July 2024 that DCJ "cannot demonstrate that it is meeting its core responsibilities towards children in contact with the child protection system." By February 2026, the Ombudsman reported that DCJ is closing 65% of Risk of Significant Harm referrals without assessment, up from 60% in 2022-23.

Only 12 of 126 recommendations from the Family is Culture Review had been completed as of February 2024. That review was published in 2019.

The compliance gap is not a gap in what the standard says. It is a gap between what the standard says and what the system does. Providers that want to operate credibly in this space need to hold themselves to a higher standard than the system currently enforces.

What a compliant, culturally safe service actually looks like

A caseworker placing an Aboriginal child with your organisation needs to be able to put specific evidence in their case notes. Not a mission statement. Specific evidence.

That means:

Your ACPP framework is documented, not in a policy that sits in a folder but in a practice guide your staff use daily.

Your cultural support planning process is co-designed with Aboriginal community members, not drafted internally.

Your staff have documented training in cultural safety, not a one-day workshop but a sustained practice.

Your intake process includes formal consultation with relevant Aboriginal community members.

You have named relationships with Aboriginal elders, community leaders, and organisations in the communities your children come from.

Your outcomes data is tracked and available: restoration rates, cultural support plan completion, sibling contact frequency.

A caseworker refers to you because placing a child with your organisation means they can demonstrate ACPP compliance. If you cannot give them that documentation, they cannot justify the referral.

What the March 2026 reforms change for providers

The NSW Government announced $350 million in Aboriginal Family Preservation contracts to 22 ACCOs in April 2026, part of a $900 million total investment in a redesigned Family Preservation system commencing 1 July 2026.

AbSec CEO John Leha welcomed the funding and immediately named what it does not fix: "Acknowledging a system is broken but saying it will take at least 4.5 years to fix suggests this cohort of young people are not a priority."

The residential care transition does not land until July 2029. Home-based care reforms: July 2028. The system is reforming in the right direction, slowly.

For providers currently building toward accreditation or building out their ACPP framework, the reform environment creates both urgency and opportunity. The OCG is currently prioritising accreditation applications from ACCOs and Aboriginal providers. If you are in that category, you are in the priority lane.

What Woka Walanga is building toward

We are an Aboriginal-led organisation pursuing OCG accreditation for statutory OOHC in NSW. We are not accredited yet. I am not writing this post to claim we have solved the ACPP compliance problem. We are building toward it, and it is hard work.

What I can say is that the framework above is what we are building to. Not the minimum the system requires. The standard that actually reflects what an Aboriginal child in care deserves.

If you are a caseworker trying to find a culturally appropriate placement for an Aboriginal child, I want to be on your shortlist when we are ready. The way to get there is to build something that holds up under scrutiny before we ask for your trust.

If you are another Aboriginal organisation navigating the same process, DM me on LinkedIn. I am happy to share what we have learned.

Frequently asked questions

What are the five elements of the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle?

The five elements of the ACPP are: Prevention (keeping Aboriginal families together), Partnership (involving Aboriginal communities in decisions), Placement (a hierarchy prioritising Aboriginal family and community), Participation (involving Aboriginal children in decisions about their care), and Connection (maintaining children's links to culture, family, and Country). Each element creates specific obligations for OOHC providers.

What does "active efforts" mean under the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle NSW?

Active efforts is a higher standard than reasonable efforts. A provider or caseworker must demonstrate a genuine, documented search for an appropriate Aboriginal placement before moving down the placement hierarchy. This includes consulting with Aboriginal community members, contacting Aboriginal organisations, and documenting every step. Stating that no Aboriginal placement was available is not enough without that documentation.

Do all OOHC providers in NSW need to comply with the ACPP?

Yes. The ACPP applies to all OOHC providers in NSW when placing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Compliance is not optional. Caseworkers are required to document how the placement hierarchy was applied for every Aboriginal child placed in care.

What does a culturally safe OOHC placement look like?

A culturally safe placement maintains the child's connection to family, culture, and Country. It involves regular contact with Aboriginal community members, a documented cultural support plan developed with community input, Aboriginal elders or community leaders with a named role in the child's care, and structured cultural activities. Cultural safety is a practice, not a label.

Why are so few Aboriginal children in OOHC placed with ACCO providers?

Demand far exceeds supply. As of 2024, over 7,500 Aboriginal children are in OOHC in NSW. Only about one in five has an ACCO providing their casework. There are simply not enough ACCO-accredited providers. The OCG is currently prioritising accreditation for Aboriginal organisations and ACCOs to address this gap.

What is OCG accreditation and why does it matter for ACPP compliance?

OCG accreditation is the licence required to deliver statutory OOHC services in NSW. Without it, an organisation cannot take legal placements of children. For caseworkers trying to comply with the ACPP, an OCG-accredited Aboriginal provider is not just preferred. It is often the only compliant option.

What did the SNAICC 2025 NSW review find about ACPP implementation?

SNAICC's 2025 review found that NSW Government inaction is undermining ACPP implementation. Aboriginal children remain 9.2 times more likely to be in OOHC. Only 5.5% of child protection funding goes to ACCOs. NSW is not on track to meet Closing the Gap Target 12, which aims to reduce over-representation by 45% by 2031. A substantial overhaul of child protection systems is essential.