Resources
Research
Sharing knowledge to create impact
As part of our Vision to be the voice for quality residential care, we are committed to sharing research.
We believe accessing leading research is essential to delivering better practices, enabling NTRCA members to better serve the people in our care.
Over-reliance on police by Out-Of-Home Care (OOHC) service providers is a key contribu- tor to the criminalisation of children in care. Drawing on interviews across judicial, legal, youth justice and children’s advocacy sectors in New South Wales, Victoria, and England and Wales, we propose a conceptual model which explains the criminalisation of trauma via policing and residential care policies that emphasise risk mitigation, and which are cur- rently devoid of therapeutic practice. Criminalisation of trauma is contingent on surveillant assemblages positioning vulnerable children as risks to themselves, others, and property. This approach justi es criminalising responses with deleterious impacts on children and staff within both systems. We discuss the need for systemic reform that shifts from perceptions of children in residential care as“risks” that need to be managed via carceral logics. We argue the case for a system that instead emphasises the importance of therapeutic responses for vulnerable children and families involved in child protection and OOHC systems.
This paper explores the core elements of therapeutic residential care (TRC) across Australia, drawing on interviews with experienced service providers from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania. While participants affirmed the importance of the existing ten essential elements of therapeutic residential care, they argued these elements are necessary but insufficient to support genuinely therapeutic practice. The findings emphasise that effective TRC depends on relational, trauma-informed systems that centre the voices of children and young people, support meaningful family and cultural connections, prioritise safety for both children and staff, and promote planned transitions through consistent therapeutic relationships. The study also identifies significant systemic barriers—including fragmented funding models, workforce instability, bureaucratic risk management, inconsistent governance, and limited collaboration between service providers and statutory agencies—that undermine therapeutic outcomes. We argue that strengthening therapeutic residential care requires reform beyond individual organisations, shifting towards an integrated therapeutic ecosystem where policy, funding, leadership, and cross-sector collaboration collectively support healing, stability, and long-term wellbeing for children and young people in out-of-home care.