The May 2025 forum, held in Dubbo, New South Wales (NSW) brought together Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), community members, policy leaders, researchers and government representatives to share knowledge, strengthen partnerships and shape the direction of reform across the NSW child and family sector. It combined policy updates, lived experience, place-based practice and strategic discussion in ways that reflected the breadth of work underway across NSW.

The forum highlighted the ongoing gap between reform rhetoric and operational reality. Emerging ACCOs continue to face barriers to establishment and growth; families still confront opaque and harmful system processes; and government reforms often proceed more quickly than the infrastructure needed to make them safe, fair and community-controlled. The forum also highlighted the benefit of practical tools that share learning about what works – tools to understand and navigate the system or to understand what supports are available.

Key topic areas included:

• review of the working with children check
• domestic and family violence and homelessness
• transition in youth justice work
• child protection services for Aboriginal children and families in Dubbo
• lived experience of Aboriginal young people in Mount Druitt.