Kids Helpline data exposes missing pathway for children experiencing family violence

23 June 2026 – New data released today from Kids Helpline Impact Report shows children and young people are reaching crisis before the right support reaches them. Crisis interventions have more than tripled over the past seven years, and Kids Helpline is now contacting police or child protection an average of 14 times every day.

But the data does not tell us what happens next. After police or child protection are contacted, are children and young people being connected to ongoing specialist support? Or are they being recorded, reported and referred on, without a dedicated service waiting on the other side?

When Kids Helpline is contacting police or child protection 14 times a day, the question we must be asking is: what happens to that child or young person after the call?

We have now had report after report, 11 in the past four years, where hundreds of children and young people have told governments they need dedicated, ongoing, specialist family violence support in their own right. Today’s data shows why that can’t keep being ignored.

I called Kids Helpline when I was younger. Someone answered, and they showed care. But nothing changed around me. I was not experiencing ‘family relationship issues’. I was living with family violence risk.

When we name family violence as a relationship issue, or treat a child’s distress as the whole problem, we send children and young people down the wrong pathway. They do not get the safety response they need.

Children’s fear, anger, shutdown, distress or suicidality can be a human response to violence. A specialist system should understand that, not pathologise the child while leaving the danger around them unaddressed.

The Second Action Plan under the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children is now being developed, alongside the Attorney General’s consultation ‘Have your say about the next action plan to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse’. We must stop treating children and young people as an add on to adult systems. We need specialist family violence services for children and young people that can sit alongside statutory reporting, hold risk with children and young people, and stay with them after the report is made.

Programs like Amplify have already shown what is possible. It is an evaluated, youth-specific family violence model designed with young people, for young people.

The issue is not that we do not know what to do. The issue is that governments have not funded specialist responses at the scale children and young people need.

A referral is only a response if there is somewhere meaningful to go.

Conor Pall, Lead of Youth Engagement & Advocacy Australian Childhood Foundation

Media enquiries:

Gina Dafalia
PR and Communications
Phone: 0447558195
Email: gdafalia@childhood.org.au