Children & young people
Six priorities for improving responses to children and young people experiencing violence
Estimated read time: 6 minutes
Children and young people experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence are too often asked to navigate systems that were not designed for them.
A new report from the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission sets out what young advocates say needs to change. The report follows a Roundtable co-designed with young advocates with lived experience of domestic, family and sexual violence, organised by the DFSV Commission in collaboration with ANROWS.
At the Roundtable, advocates met directly with Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek and Assistant Minister for Social Services and Assistant Minister for Prevention of Family Violence Ged Kearney.
The report arrives at a significant moment as ANROWS supports the government in implementing the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032.
Young advocates made clear that children and young people cannot remain peripheral to the systems, policies and responses intended to support them.
Conor Pall, a young advocate and member of the DFSV Commission’s Lived Experience Advisory Council, captured the report’s central message:
“The Second Action Plan must be the moment we stop leaving children and young people at the edge of our responses, and start building the safety, support and recovery we have been asking for.”
ANROWS CEO, Dr Tessa Boyd-Caine said of the findings:
“Children and young people have been clear about what needs to change. The evidence tells us they are victim-survivors in their own right, with distinct experiences, needs and expertise. They want systems that recognise their experiences, respond earlier, and support their safety and recovery in ways that make sense for their lives.”
The report identifies six priorities for action: finding support; empowerment through education; safe and accessible housing; engaging with police; family court and the justice system; and systems transformation.
Finding support
Young people experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence described systems that were often inaccessible, not age-appropriate or not designed around their circumstances.
Young people aged 15 to 18 and unaccompanied young people often fall between child and adult services. Long waiting lists can mean young people age out before receiving care. Additionally, requirements for parent or guardian consent can create serious safety barriers when home is unsafe.
Young advocates called for dedicated programs and services designed for children and young people, including case management and counselling to help them navigate systems and access support. They also called for greater recognition of young people under 18 as capable decision-makers.
Attendees of the Roundtable also identified the cost of counselling, medication and recovery supports as a major barrier to long-term healing. As one advocate asked:
“Why is healing something I have to afford?”
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people, policymakers heard that support must recognise the continuing impacts of colonisation, institutionalisation, trauma, cultural loss and climate change.
Empowerment through education
Young people called for consistent, comprehensive and up-to-date respectful relationships education across Australia, alongside broader social and emotional learning and healthy masculinities education for boys and young men.
Teachers, school counsellors and support staff need to recognise disclosures, respond safely and maintain trust. As one attendee put it:
“Meet us where we are.”
Schools can support recovery in practical ways by listening to students, designing safe spaces where they are not overwhelmed, and ensuring age-appropriate resources are available.
Young advocates also pointed to the value of community education, particularly in culturally and linguistically diverse communities where individual interventions may not be culturally safe, appropriate or effective.
Safe and accessible housing
Children and young people escaping violence need safe, appropriate and accessible housing options.
Young advocates described the difficulty of finding housing that was both available and suitable for their circumstances. Some refuge environments were unsafe or unsanitary. Others were inaccessible for young people with disability, including where disability support workers were not permitted to enter.
The service gap for 16- to 18-year-olds also affects their housing options. The report points to the need for refuges and long-term housing supports designed specifically for young people, including those under 18 and those with disability.
Engaging with police
Children and young people’s interactions with police should be safe, respectful and empowering.
However, this isn’t always the case. Young advocates described encounters that were frightening or dismissive. Some had requests for safety ignored and others were returned to unsafe homes without officers speaking directly to them or asking about their wellbeing.
One young person told the Roundtable:
“No one spoke directly to me.”
The report highlights that children and young people can be treated as passive subjects of adult decision-making, rather than people with their own safety concerns and accounts of harm. It also raises concerns about abusive behaviour by parents or guardians being minimised when framed as corporal punishment, leaving children without further investigation or protection.
Family Court and the justice system
Children and young people need and want meaningful ways to participate in processes that affect their safety, recovery and future.
Young advocates described being excluded from proceedings, including where a child was the key witness to abuse but was not allowed to remain in court or give evidence because he was under 18.
Concerns were also raised about whether Independent Children’s Lawyers meaningfully consult the children and young people they represent. Legal costs and unequal access to representation can be used to prolong abuse, placing protective parents and children at a disadvantage.
For some young people, justice processes were not experienced as a pathway to healing, but as stressful and potentially retraumatising systems that forced them to choose between seeking justice and recovering from harm.
Systems transformation
Across every priority, young advocates called for systems designed with them, not merely improvements to existing services. Attendees called for children and young people to be respected and heard as individuals, with their feelings, needs and interests considered in every part of system and service design.
They also widened the ambition of reform, calling for strategies to end gender-based violence to not only aim for the absence of violence, but for the possibility of healthy, loving and pleasurable relationships.
As one young advocate said, the task is to:
“Change love from pain to pleasure.”
What happens next
The DFSV Commission has committed to ensuring its advice to government is informed, where relevant, by the perspectives of children and young people.
It will also engage with young lived experience advocates to guide work on the Second Action Plan, review the ideas proposed at the Roundtable for opportunities to strengthen policy, deepen its understanding of how family law and justice systems intersect with children and young people’s experiences of violence, and report publicly on progress in its 2026 Yearly Report to Parliament.
Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin recognised that “children and young people are increasingly recognised as experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence – not just as witnesses, and not just as extensions of their parents.”
Following the Roundtable, Commissioner Cronin said policymakers carried responsibility for creating more spaces for children and young people to engage with them, as well as for driving real lasting change using their insights.
Read the report
Media contact:
Emmagness Ruzvidzo,
Media and Communications Manager, ANROWS
E: Emmagness.Ruzvidzo@anrows.org.au
M: 0468 322 800
About ANROWS
Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) was established by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments under Australia’s first National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (2010–2022). As an ongoing partner to the National Plan, ANROWS continues to build, strengthen and translate the evidence base that informs the current National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children (2022–2032).
With more than 150 research projects led, commissioned or contributed to, ANROWS delivers targeted evidence to inform practice, policy, and systems reform. We engage closely with victim-survivors, communities, service providers, governments and researchers to ensure our work reflects lived experience and supports collective action.
ANROWS is a not-for-profit company jointly funded by the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments. We are a registered harm prevention charity and deductible gift recipient, governed by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC).