Family inclusion in child protection: Knowledge, power and resistance

•Family inclusion in child protection is a critical but unrealised aim in Australia.•Parents who have had children removed from their care feel powerless and voiceless.•Parents seek collaboration and meaningful roles in their children’s lives.•Parents’ advocacy and passion can be reconceptualised as an asset for inclusion. The inclusion of families throughout the child protection process can improve lifelong outcomes for children who have been removed from their parents’ care. However, child protection authorities have struggled to prioritize principles of family inclusion within systems that position families as risky. While parents’ experiences of powerlessness within child protection systems have been well documented, little is known about parents’ perspectives on family inclusion specifically. We engaged six parents who had experienced removal of children from their care in interviews and focus groups as part of a larger study that examined practitioners’, carers’, lawyers’ and parents’ views on family inclusion in Australia. In this article we report on parents’ experiences and recommendations for improving family inclusion. Through the analytical framework of Foucauldian concepts of power, knowledge and acts of resistance we highlight the complexities of parents’ lives and intersections in their experiences of systemic and social exclusion. In identifying the importance of collaboration, decision making and parental identity these findings suggest that the advocacy of parents for inclusion in the lives of their children is an underutilized asset in child protection systems.