Mainstream providers of out-of-home care services are being urged to "boldly commit to return children to culture, community and kin", as the peak body for Indigenous children and families warns the overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in care has reached crisis levels.

Indigenous children across Australia are placed in out-of-home care at 10.9 times the rate of non-Indigenous children, with the gap continuing to widen despite national commitments under Closing the Gap to reduce the disparity.

It is data that SNAICC - National Voice for our Children chief executive Catherine Liddle describes as a "national emergency", arguing urgent reform can no longer be delayed.

SNAICC, the peak body for Indigenous children and families, has released its Sector Transformation Principles Framework, a new roadmap designed to guide organisations transitioning out-of-home care (OOHC) services to Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs).

The framework sets out a justice-based approach to reform and accountability for providers, placing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander self-determination, community control and culturally grounded care systems at the centre of child and family services.

It calls for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to lead the design, delivery, oversight, monitoring and evaluation of services, while governments and mainstream NGOs step back from dominant service models and elevate ACCOs as the lead agents of change.

"Closing the gap is everyone's business," Ms Liddle said.

"The Sector Transformation Principles Framework provides a roadmap to organisations who don't know where to begin their transformation journey."

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The framework's key pillars include cultural safety, structural reform, accountability and long-term capacity building.

It argues culture must shape decision-making at every level and that reform must go beyond simply transferring existing services, instead redesigning systems through community leadership and aligning with both the Closing the Gap commitments and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

The model also emphasises equitable partnerships, sustained funding, workforce and governance development, and transparent accountability, with the aim o ensuring reforms are long-lasting and genuinely Indigenous-led.

"ACCOs know what works for our children and families, they have been ready and waiting to take the reins from mainstream services through genuine partnership," Ms Liddle said.

"With the release of this framework, there is no longer any excuse for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to continue bearing the consequences of systems that don't serve them."

Aboriginal peak bodies have long argued that ACCOs are best placed to deliver services for Aboriginal children and families, and governments have increasingly begun embedding self-determination into child protection legislation and policy frameworks, although progress has been gradual.

Recent federal legislation establishing a National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people has added further weight to those reforms, with the office empowered to call out breaches of children's rights.

The legislation also requires the commissioner to exercise powers consistently with UNDRIP and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

New Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter told National Indigenous Times this week the inclusion of those principles in the legislation is particularly significant.

"For me, those together provided a really clear, principled basis for accountability and reporting about powers," she said. "So when the government falls short of either of those, we can formally document them [and] table them in Parliament, and it becomes visible to the public."

For Ms Liddle, she notes there is "already so much momentum with significant players in the system". She cites Allies for Children successfully transitioning Indigenous children in their care across to ACCOs.

"We're asking organisations to be on [the] right side of history," she says, "and help us build a better future for our children."