A child protection expert has praised the work of South Australian coroner Mark Johns, saying he has produced "shocking" findings on how authorities failed young Adelaide girl Chloe Valentine.

Dr Freda Briggs, a professor at the University of South Australia, gave evidence during the coronial inquest and said she welcomed the 157 pages of findings the coroner had produced on how child protection in SA should be strengthened.

"On the whole it is a shocking document. Certainly I'm pleased with the coroner's findings," she told 891 ABC Adelaide.

"I think he's been very astute and understanding of the situation and has attacked it very comprehensively."

Chloe was four years old when she died from horrific injuries after crashing a motorbike she was forced to ride in a backyard at suburban Ingle Farm in early 2012.

The coroner recommended sweeping changes for South Australia's child protection services and was scathing of child protection agency Families SA.

Key recommendations: Any parent convicted of manslaughter or murder of a child should automatically have future children removed from their care at birth

Any parent convicted of manslaughter or murder of a child should automatically have future children removed from their care at birth All social workers with less than 12 months' experience should be supervised

All social workers with less than 12 months' experience should be supervised An "urgent re-education" to rectify widespread misunderstanding that parents have to be consulted on any care decisions about their child

An "urgent re-education" to rectify widespread misunderstanding that parents have to be consulted on any care decisions about their child A requirement for social workers to be registered

A requirement for social workers to be registered The State Government begin negotiations with the Commonwealth to make a child protection income management regime permanent

The State Government begin negotiations with the Commonwealth to make a child protection income management regime permanent That permanent removal of children to adoptive parents has a place in the child protection scheme

They included automatically removing a child at birth from a parent convicted of manslaughter or murder of a child, the permanent removal of children to adoptive parents, and safeguards to ensure welfare payments were being spent on essential items.

President of the Australian Association of Social Workers Karen Healy welcomed a recommendation for the mandatory registration of social workers and the one-year supervision of all postgraduate social workers.

The coroner was critical of staffing used by Families SA in the Valentine case, and Ms Healy said the measures would help ensure social workers were better prepared for handling difficult cases .

"To have student social workers and newly qualified social workers dealing with that situation was to an extent foolhardy," she said.

"There was a need for a more experienced worker to be guiding that student and those newly qualified workers."

Ms Healy said registration would help establish clearer industry standards and support systems.

"Registration would set up various strategies that would compel employers like Families SA to make sure that their workers were properly equipped and supported to be doing work in the workplace," she said.

Leah Bromfield from the Australian Centre for Child Protection said any reforms needed to look at the causes of abuse and how they could be prevented.

"To reduce the incidence of abuse and neglect we do need to focus on those major causes of child maltreatment," she said.

"Strategies to reduce the incidence of domestic violence, of parental substance misuse and state-wide intensive family support services for those families with multiple and complex problems."

SA Child Protection Reform Minister John Rau said none of the coronial recommendations came as a surprise and he was broadly supportive of all of them.

He said decisions now had to be taken by State Cabinet about how to respond.

One minister should oversee recommendations: Opposition

SA Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said a minister should be dedicated entirely to child protection to ensure the recommendations are implemented.

"I'm talking about this dedicated minister having no other portfolio responsibilities apart from child protection," he said.

Mr Rau, who is also SA's Attorney-General, holds several portfolios other than child protection reform, including justice reform, planning, housing and urban development, and industrial relations.

"We need this focus until we get his portfolio back in check," Mr Marshall said.

"It's completely out of check as evident by the coroners report, the Debelle Inquiry, the Layton report and of course the royal commission (into Families SA) which is currently underway."

Dr Briggs said the findings highlighted the continuing problem of children's rights being overlooked in favour of parents.

"There are 22 reports of the child [Chloe] being harmed and 57 witnesses and yet nothing was done to protect this child," she said.

"I certainly support the coroner's view that children, not just this child, are largely still being treated as items of property, you know the property of the parent, not just in this situation but it also happens in the Family Court."

Leaving a child in a 'bad' family is wrong, Briggs says

Dr Briggs said she believed that for decades now child protection authorities had prioritised parents' rights over children's safety.

"The Government's policy has been family reunification, for a long time we've seen children being returned to potentially dangerous parents," she said of the South Australian experience.

"This [idea] actually started way back in the 1970s and it began in England with the government putting the notion around that a child's family is the best family to be with, even if the family is awful.

"The saying was 'A bad family of your own is better than a good family of someone else's' and it grew from that."

Dr Briggs said the notion that a child's own family was the best care option was not backed by any research findings from that era.

"It was an economic issue, sending kids back to the homes was cheaper than putting them in foster care," she said.

"The problem [in Australia] is that there aren't enough foster carers.

"Research has shown why foster carers were dropping out in droves - they were dropping out faster than they could be recruited.

"It had nothing to do with payment, it had to do with the failure of the departments to support them. They would remove [children] at a moment's notice and send them back to parents against [the child's] wishes, where they were abused [again] and all that sort of thing."

Children 'should not be transported alone'

Taxi drivers in Adelaide had complained about finding themselves caught up in child protection matters, Dr Briggs said.

One of the coronial findings is that children under 12 not be transported alone.

"Taxi drivers have actually complained to me about this. They feel it is unfair to them," she said.

"I believe there has been a case recently where a taxi driver is accused of sexually abusing a somewhat older child.

"That should not have been happening but has been happening for a long time."

Dr Briggs was supportive of the coronial finding urging adoptive parents be found for children who were deemed to be in danger.

But the coroner highlighted that only 114 Australian children were adopted in 2009-10 compared with more than 8,500 back in the early 1970s.

"[Adoption] would certainly be better than putting a child into a group home with multiple other children, all of whom have problems," Dr Briggs said.

"These are the most traumatised children in the state and are being cared for by multiple carers employed by agencies who cannot provide consistency of care.

"Children need stability and adoption would provide that stability, but the children would obviously need to be in touch with their history and their own parents to avoid the problems that they usually have in adolescence."