During 2017, there were 47,915 children living away from their family home, under child protection orders in Australia, in what represents an increasing trend (AIHW, 2018a). The parental mental health and substance use comorbidity crisis in Australian communities is directly linked to up to 70 percent of children who currently reside in foster care (Canfield et al., 2017; De Bortoli, Coles, & Dolan, 2013; Doab, Fowler, & Dawson, 2015; McGlade, Ware & Crawford, 2009; Worley et al., 2005). Lack of appropriate intervention for mothers with substance use disorders means that they often do not enter treatment (Worley, et al., 2005), and maternal drug use either during pregnancy or their children’s early years leads to poorer developmental outcomes for children (Dawe, Hartnett, & Frye, 2008; Legler et al., 2012; Niccols et al., 2012).

The Grace Homestead Recovery Centre is a long-term residential rehabilitation recovery program, providing treatment for mothers who have a substance use disorder (SUD), co-occurring conditions (e.g., mental health, domestic and family violence), and who have up to two children in their care. Grace Homestead has operated since August 2018 as a small-scale, intensive intervention service, to provide a blueprint for long-term, parent-child treatment in Queensland, Australia.

Outcomes of the pilot study have shown a 72% sustained recovery success rate, meaning that 72% of graduates have remained abstinent, have their children in their care, and are in work or study.

It is our contention that the current child protection practice of removing children, and placing parents within the judicial system has failed, and is only perpetuating generational trauma. Conversations about child mental health, and reducing the prevalence of adolescent crime cannot exclude longterm residential parent-child recovery models.