Grandparents must be included in decisions about children in out-of-home care

[Extract] Across Australia, growing numbers of children are entering out-of-home care, including disproportionate numbers of Indigenous children. As a consequence, more grandparents are becoming primary carers for their grandchildren, often due to family breakdown, incarceration of a parent, substance misuse, or family violence. Intergenerational relationships are crucial to the transmission of cultural knowledge, and severed family relationships can trigger trauma. Yet some grandparents report decreased, precarious or even denied contact with grandchildren after child protection concerns, or an unpredictable cycle of maintained and then lost contact, even in circumstances where a child is placed in kinship care. Our latest research builds on previous research to optimise grandparent contact after child protection concerns. Findings reveal that grandparents yearn to maintain a significant role in grandchildren's lives. Yet grandparents reported being overlooked and routinely sidelined in decision-making by child protection workers