IFS works to keep children safe, strong, and connected to family, culture, and Country. Our approach is guided by Aboriginal ways of knowing, being, and doing, recognising the strength of kinship networks, cultural identity, and community-led solutions.

Support from IFS enables families to:

• Strengthen resilience and self-determination to meet their own needs and respond to life’s challenges.
• Maintain and deepen cultural and community connections that nurture belonging, identity, and pride.
• Build confidence and capabilities to meet children’s physical, emotional, and cultural needs.
• Create strong, sustainable networks of support that include Elders, extended family, and community organisations.
• Support children’s healing, growth, and thriving through connection to culture, Country, and community.

IFS practitioners walk alongside the parent/caregiver, child, young person, and family to:

• Undertake a culturally safe child and family assessment (Outcome Star – Family) that honours cultural context and lived experience.
• Work together to set goals and objectives that reflect family priorities and cultural values.
• Develop a Child and Family Action Plan that is led by the family’s voice and guided by community knowledge.
• Implement, monitor, and review the plan with the family, ensuring cultural safety and respect at each step.
• Support respectful and collaborative case closure, ensuring lasting connections remain in place.

IFS goals include:

• Strengthened parenting skills, cultural parenting practices, and safety planning.
• Access to brokerage and culturally relevant supports.
• Linking families with community-controlled and culturally appropriate services.
• Collaborative, culturally safe interventions through case planning, secondary consults, and partnerships with Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs).

Delivered in partnership with Child Protection, these services aim to maintain children safely at home, guided by the principle of keeping children on Country and within kin whenever possible. Intensive support is provided to families with children (0–17 years) who may be experiencing cumulative harm, trauma, and barriers to engagement and that may need a little extra additional support.

Intensive Family services Practioners walk alongside families to provide a culturally safe way to assess needs, set culturally aligned goals, create and review action plans, and close cases respectfully while ensuring ongoing connections.

They aim to strengthen parenting skills, provide access to relevant supports, link families with community-controlled services, and deliver collaborative, culturally safe interventions.

Supports strong families by keeping children safe, healthy, and connected, and helping parents/caregivers create nurturing home environments.
It delivers culturally safe, evidence-based, and integrated support in partnership with Child Protection, combining an intensive intervention phase with ongoing support to prevent children from entering/re-entering care and to reunify them with family when safe.

Key features include:

• Relational, child-focused support that empowers families.
• Advancing Aboriginal self-determination through culturally safe practice and governance.
• Timely engagement to improve safety, connection, and self-sufficiency.
• Strong partnerships between Response teams, Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), and Child Protection.
• Local governance to guide service delivery.
• Rapid, flexible, needs-based support via a lead practitioner and care team.
• Evidence-informed approaches tailored to specific family needs.
• Mobile teams to train, coach, and embed best practice, with continuous improvement through data use.