Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children in Queensland Foster Care: The ATSICPP Explained

Queensland has one of the most significant Indigenous child protection crises in Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children make up approximately 6% of Queensland's child population but account for around 30% of all children in out-of-home care. That is not an abstraction. It represents thousands of First Nations children separated from their families and communities — and the legacy of policies that once made that separation deliberate policy.

Every foster carer in Queensland, whether or not they expect to care for an Indigenous child, needs to understand the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle. Not because it is a bureaucratic requirement — though it is — but because it reflects a legal and moral commitment that shapes every decision in Queensland's child protection system.

What Is the ATSICPP?

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle is enshrined in Section 5C of the Child Protection Act 1999. It establishes a hierarchy of preferred placements for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children entering out-of-home care, requiring that every option in that hierarchy be exhausted before moving to the next level.

The ATSICPP in Queensland operates across five interconnected elements, developed through consultation with the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practice framework:

Prevention: The system must work actively to keep First Nations families together and to prevent children from entering out-of-home care in the first place. This means engaging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations in family support before removal.

Partnership: Decisions about First Nations children must be made in genuine partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations, not merely consulting them as an afterthought.

Placement: When a child must enter out-of-home care, the placement hierarchy is:

1. A member of the child's extended family
2. An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person from the child's community
3. An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person
4. A non-Indigenous person who is sensitive to the child's needs and can support cultural connections

Participation: Children and families must be genuine participants in decisions about their lives, not passive recipients of system decisions made for them.

Connection: The child's connection to their culture, language, community, and Country must be actively maintained and supported, regardless of where they are placed.

What Non-Indigenous Carers Are Required to Do

If you are a non-Indigenous carer with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child in your care, your obligations go significantly beyond what is required for non-Indigenous children. The ATSICPP is not aspirational language — it carries legal weight under the Child Protection Act 1999, and failure to facilitate a child's cultural connections is a failure of the Standards of Care.

Cultural Support Plans. Every Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child in Queensland out-of-home care is entitled to a Cultural Support Plan. This document, developed with the involvement of the child's community, outlines specific steps to maintain the child's cultural identity. As a carer, you are responsible for implementing this plan. That includes facilitating contact with Elders, supporting participation in community events and ceremonies, and incorporating culturally appropriate practices into daily life.

Consultation with the Child's Community. You will be expected to engage with the relevant Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisation in your region. In Queensland, these organisations include bodies like the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak (QATSICPP) and various community-controlled services depending on the child's specific community and Country.

Language and Identity. Where a child has a connection to a specific language or cultural practice, you are expected to actively support it. This may mean arranging for the child to visit Elders who speak their language, connecting them with cultural mentors, or participating in local NAIDOC Week and other community events.

Seeking Advice. If you are unsure about how to support a child's cultural identity, the expectation is that you ask — your Carer Support Worker, the Department, the community organisation — rather than default to treating the child as you would a non-Indigenous child.

The Reality of the ATSICPP in Practice

Queensland's commitment to the ATSICPP is genuine at the policy level and uneven in practice. The 2026 Commission of Inquiry into Child Safety has received submissions documenting persistent gaps: children placed with non-Indigenous carers without Cultural Support Plans in place, inadequate consultation with community organisations, and placements that continue for months or years without meaningful cultural support.

Research by SNAICC and the Queensland Family and Child Commission consistently shows that placement within culture is the strongest predictor of wellbeing for Indigenous children in care. Children placed outside their culture and community — without active cultural support — are at higher risk of identity confusion, mental health difficulties, and disconnection from the networks they will need as adults.

The burden of filling the gap between policy and practice often falls on carers who genuinely care about the children they look after. This is both an opportunity and a responsibility: non-Indigenous carers who invest in understanding and facilitating cultural connections make a meaningful difference to outcomes for Indigenous children.

The Shortage of Indigenous Carers

One of the structural challenges facing Queensland's system is an acute shortage of authorised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers. The reasons are complex: the legacy of the Stolen Generations has created profound distrust of child protection systems in many First Nations communities, the authorisation process itself involves scrutiny that many families find intrusive, and the financial and bureaucratic demands of fostering are disproportionately burdensome for communities already facing significant socioeconomic disadvantage.

Queensland agencies and the Queensland government are working with QATSICPP and community organisations to develop culturally safe recruitment and assessment pathways that address some of these barriers. Progress is slow. In the meantime, the reality is that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Queensland are placed with non-Indigenous carers who are doing their best to fulfil obligations that require cultural knowledge and community relationships they do not have.

This is not an indictment of those carers — it is an indictment of a system that places them in that position without adequate support. But it underscores why cultural safety training, Cultural Support Plans, and genuine engagement with community organisations are not optional extras in Queensland foster care. They are central to the role.

The Queensland Foster Care Guide covers the ATSICPP in practical terms: what a Cultural Support Plan looks like, which organisations to contact, and how to approach cultural safety if you are a non-Indigenous carer placed with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child.

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