Ms Nicola McCarthy:

I thank the Senator. I would like to explain our role in advocating for and supporting children and giving them a voice for their views and wishes, both in the core procedures and with other professionals and people who may be in their lives. The core of that is a consistent, stable relationship with ourselves. We spend time with the children, helping them to understand decisions which are being made, the process of what is happening in their lives and, sometimes maybe, why they have come into care, what has happened in their world, and to understand their version of what has happened in their lives. Then we help them to express that effectively to ourselves, the court and to other professionals involved with them. That gives them a sense of agency in the whole process and an ability to say their views. What we aim to do is build a safe relationship where they can talk about what are very difficult things for children. The key, probably, is the use of the relationship to help them express their views.

We can also make recommendations built from our understanding of what the child is saying, the child's views of his or her world and the relationships he or she has with the people in that world, and to look for assessments or interventions which may be helpful for a child. Regarding what the Senator spoke about in some of her questions around where intervention comes into this, assessments are important in understanding the child and leading to a pathway for intervention which may help the child to recover from what have often been very challenging experiences in his or her life.