Power to Kids
Strengthening prevention and responses to sexual exploitation, harmful sexual behaviours and dating violence for young people in residential care.
Power to Kids in Out of Home Care
The instance of sexual exploitation of children residing in care is alarmingly high. Despite accounting for only 5% of all children in care, children in residential care account for 33% of child sexual exploitation reports on children in care in Australia.
Many of these children and young people have experienced repeated family violence, trauma and displacement, making them highly vulnerable to child sexual exploitation, harmful sexual behaviours, and dating violence. Prevention and early intervention are critical.
Upskilling carers
Power to Kids upskills carers, giving them the confidence to have 'brave conversations' about sexual safety and building carers capabilities to prevent, identify and intervene early when they see indicators of abuse.
Skilled carers play a crucial role in empowering children and young people in care with information about healthy relationships and sexual safety and knowledge about when and how to reach out for support.
We know that conversations about sexual safety can be difficult.
This is why carers need training and support to confidently talk to children and young people. They also need clear and practical resources and prevention and early intervention strategies to respond to risks as they arise.
Empowering children and young people
Power to Kids increases children and young people's understanding of healthy relationships and sexual safety.
We know that by raising awareness of respectful relationships, grooming behaviour and sexual exploitation young people are empowered then to keep themselves safe.
Power to Kids in Schools
The Power to Kids program is currently being adapted for school settings. The Power to Kids in Schools program will support educators with the knowledge and practical skills to hold ‘brave conversations’ around sexual health and safety. The program features three evidence-based strategies including a school-wide education approach, early identification and intervention, and connecting with appropriate services to disrupt harm.
Contact us if you want to know more about the Power to Kids in Schools program.
Program background & delivery details
Introductory events
- Key decision makers invited to a workshop in each state / territory, designed to generate shared commitment.
- Key Aboriginal leaders invited to a yarning circle in each state / territory, designed to guide the implementation and ensure culturally safe and inclusive practice.
Readiness assessment
- Participating organisations complete an assessment that will help in identifying areas where focus of pre-work may be required to impactfully implement Power to Kids.
Pre-training e-learning
- Participants will undertake an introductory one-hour e-learn, inclusive of engaging with the Myths & Misconceptions tool, and an hour of cultural e-learn to build cultural capabilities for implementation.
Workforce training
- 1 day live webinar.
- Residential carers will cover three prevention strategies and model brave conversations.
- Leaders and Champions can attend an additional 2 hours training to support program implementation.
Self-guided implementation
- Online resources available on our learning platform including videos, psychoeducation and cultural capability resources.
Community of practice
- Participants are invited to join us to share learnings and further enhance their practice in this monthly online forum.
Note:
These services contextualise and implement Power to Kids to specific local contexts
View free offering printable version
The MacKillop Institute* is proud to offer Power to Kids to every residential care provider in Australia. This offering is a result of the generous support of Westpac's Safer Children, Safer Communities initiative.
The MacKillop Institute was established by MacKillop Family Services to build the capacity of external organisations to deliver best-practice, trauma-informed services to support children, young people and families who have experienced change, loss and trauma. This means taking the best of MacKillop's experience and evidence out to the wider sector to help where we can.
From February 2022 through to November 2023 (with multiple training sessions per month).
Power to Kids was designed and implemented by MacKillop Family Services in partnership with the University of Melbourne.
The program was established after a review of prevention strategies used across the world and in consultation with an expert advisory group of researchers, policy makers and practitioners.
Power to Kids has been informed by Dr McKibbin's PhD research, where young people who had engaged in sexually harmful behaviour were asked “what could have been different in their lives so that they did not develop these behaviours?”
The program has been designed in consultation with an expert advisory group of key researchers, policy makers and practitioners working in the field of child sexual abuse and has been informed by Dr McKibbin's PhD research, which involved asking young people who had engaged in sexually harmful behaviour about what could have been different in their lives so that they did not develop these behaviours. Research conducted through this project identified three prevention strategies:
Strategy 1: Whole-of-house respectful relationships and sexuality education
Training and coaching workers and carers in a whole-of-house approach, including recognising and responding to harmful sexual behaviour (HSB), child sexual exploitation (CSE) and dating violence (DV); and educating children about respectful relationships and sexual health and safety.
Strategy 2: Missing from home strategy
Establishing practice partnerships between each child or young person and their residential carers to counter grooming; assertively engaging young people using safety planning and social media or phones to stay in touch especially when missing from home; and working collaboratively with external agencies to disrupt CSE.
Strategy 3: Sexual safety response:
Early identification, safety planning, advocacy and therapeutic treatment for HSB and DV; proactively supporting exit strategies for CSE, including strengthening relationships with family of origin; and joining-up of residential care workers with local HSB, DV & CSE professionals and local frontline police.
We're committed to maximising our impact on children and young people through action research and evaluation.
Power to Kids was piloted in four MacKillop Family Services residential care homes and its effectiveness measured through rigorous evaluation. The overwhelming message from the evaluation was that: “Power to Kids makes a real difference in the safety of children in care.” Our key findings included that:
Children and young people
- experienced increased protection against harmful sexual behaviour, child sexual exploitation and dating violence
- experienced enhanced safe relationships with their carers
- were observed to be missing from home less often
- improved their knowledge, skills and attitudes towards sexual health and safety
Carers
- increased their knowledge about harmful sexual behaviour, child sexual exploitation and dating violence
- improved their capabilities to identify harmful sexual behaviour, child sexual exploitation and dating violence and to ensure advocacy, exit and treatment
- increased self-efficacy in having sexual health and safety conversations with children and young people
MacKillop acknowledges the John T Reid Charitable Trust, The Department of Health and Human Human Services and the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare for supporting this research.
Read more about the sexual exploitation of children in care and our evidence base:
Gemma McKibbin (2017). 'Preventing Harmful Sexual Behaviour and Child Sexual Exploitation for children & young people living in residential care: A scoping review in the Australian context', Children and Youth Services Review, 82 (2017) 373-382.
Gemma McKibbin, Nick Halfpenny & Cathy Humphreys (2019). 'Respecting Sexual Safety: A Program to Prevent Sexual Exploitation and Harmful Sexual Behaviour in Out-of-Home Care', Australian Social Work, DOI: 10.1080/0312407X.2019.1597910
"Six weeks ago, I don't think he would have come forward…Now he knows that this actually isn't okay… I think that the program has definitely had an influence on him and made him feel comfortable to talk to the staff around what has happened."
Case Manager referring to a young man disclosing an act of harmful sexual behaviour
Learn more
Stories of impact
Preventing sexual exploitation in residential care homes
Children living in residential care homes are at a greater risk of sexual exploitation, their vulnerable status making them a target for criminals and unwanted behaviours from peers. Since 2021, the South Australian Department for Child Protection has rolled out the Power to Kids program to help child and youth workers gain the skills to identify and prevent sexual exploitation of children and young people in their care.
Out of home care
Latest News
Changes for the Power to Kids Out of Home Care Program
Power to Kids is embarking on the next exciting phase of its journey. In 2024, we’re excited for Power to Kids to transition to a new service model that will enable us to continue to deliver high-quality training and increase our focus on embedding implementation into practice. We will continue to build on the incredible achievements and learnings from the past two years and offer partner organisations a range of flexible and customised options to meet individual needs, budgets and timeframes.
Education
"One striking thing that came out of (the program) was that the girls mentioned to the carers that they should be talking to one of the other girls in the house, because they think she's being groomed by her uncle... the girls seemed concerned about this relationship… and mentioned that to the carers..."
Sexual Health Nurse