complex ways including in behaviours amongst children , young people and young people and adults that are harmful to them and those around them . We know that there are responses which can help alleviate the symptoms and support people to cope , heal and return to good health . But we also want to prevent the harm from occurring in the first place .
We will maximise the impact of our public policy and advocacy by utilising the combination of established evidence , our practice expertise , research and policy analysis and concentrating in areas where we can make a long term difference to children , families and communities .
Our experience in public policy tells us that pursuing long term change requires sustained focus , dedicated resources , evidence of what works and the discipline to avoid taking on too much and diluting our impact . We know from our direct work with families and children that their stories of success in overcoming challenges are a compelling but often overlooked part of the ‘ evidence base ’. Hence evaluating our work with families and children , tracking outcomes from our services and documenting case studies will form a critical foundation for our public policy work .
Our challenge is to - learn from our involvement in the lives of families , children and communities and articulate a contemporary public policy agenda - to continue to advocate in the interests of vulnerable children and families and promote social change . Clearly there is no shortage of issues to pursue . We can ’ t do it all but we can do some of it and some of it we are best placed to do than any other organisation .
Strengthening our commitment to social change
Making a stronger and strategic contribution to public policy reforms through research , evaluation , collaboration and advocacy is a central component of the 2011-2013 Berry Street Strategic Plan . Government , community , industry , business and philanthropic organisations all have a role in addressing the underlying causes of issues such as family violence , child abuse and neglect .
Berry Street supports the active and deliberate use of a children ’ s rights framework within our work and in particular embedding the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child ( CROC ) in our services , practice , policy and advocacy . Working directly with children and young people who have been the victims of child abuse or child neglect , we always place children ’ s interests first and take action to protect their rights . Children depend on others to do this for them and when the adults in their lives have failed to do so , children need advocates who will speak up on their behalf . Berry Street does this for individual children and young people within the child protection system . Doing so does not prevent us from holding concerns for the well being of families or from advocating for structural reforms that will ease the burden on families , support them to raise their children well and lessen the incidence child abuse and neglect .
A five point agenda for the next decade
Our public policy and advocacy agenda , with its overarching commitment to the rights of children , covers five broad areas . Over the next decade Berry Street is committed to pursuing social change across these five areas . They reflect the breadth of our direct work with children and families and a need to tackle complex social and economic policy issues at the highest level . They span issues relating to childhood , children ’ s rights , family poverty , homelessness , education , violence , the negative consequences of colonisation on Aboriginal families , child abuse and child neglect . They are as follows :