Chloe Valentine: Grandmother tells parliamentary committee laws must allow children to be removed from drug-using parents
CHILD protection laws should be changed to ensure children are removed from parents who are proven drug users, the grandmother of Chloe Valentine says.
CHILD protection laws should be changed to ensure children are removed from parents who are proven drug users and extended family are considered the first option for alternative care, the grandmother of Chloe Valentine says.
Belinda Valentine has given evidence to a parliamentary committee examining the child protection system in SA.
Her granddaughter Chloe’s death, and Families SA’s handling of 21 child protection notifications made about the four-year-old, were the subject of a coronial inquest.
Ms Valentine told the parliamentary committee that she would support law changes that meant children were removed from the care of parents who were proven to be abusing illicit drugs, even if only temporarily.
“They can’t look after themselves, they certainly shouldn’t be looking after a child,” she said.
Ms Valentine said her daughter, and Chloe’s mother, Ashlee Polkinghorne was not drug-tested despite using illicit substances.
This prompted her to call for better training of social workers dealing with drug-using clients.
When removing children from unsafe parents, authorities should always consider extended family as the first option for alternative care, she said.
“Kinship care is something that needs to be taken into account very seriously — it should be the first step every time,” Ms Valentine said.
“There are a lot of grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins that are willing and able to take on a child.”
Ms Valentine said her family was in the process of establishing the Chloe Valentine Foundation to help other families.
Education and Child Development Department chief Tony Harrison also gave evidence to the committee.
Asked what happened when a parent returned a positive drug test, Mr Harrison said the result would be considered on a “case by case basis”.
“I very much accept that ... people in our society would have a strong view that if some parents engage in illicit drug use they forgo their right to be a parent,” he said.
“It doesn’t mean that you automatically take a child away from their parents.
“We have to balance that with the interests of looking after a child.”
Mr Harrison said the decision to take a child into state care had its own consequences, which could also be harmful to children.
He said parents involved in the child protection system were also randomly drug tested.
He undertook to provide more information to the committee about drug assessments of parents and the proportion of children taken from their parents because of concerns over drug use.
Mr Harrison also said his department:
HAD briefed about 50 senior Families SA staff on implementing recommendations stemming from the coronial inquest into Chloe’s death.
HAD received about 1100 applications for advertised residential carer roles and about 400 for youth and social worker roles.
CONCEDED that staff must improve their note-taking to provide more accurate case records.
WAS working to establish better “mentoring and coaching” of junior social workers.
WAS considering the merit of establishing an independent panel which could assess appeals by foster parents who have children removed from their care.
Foster care organisations have previously asked for such a panel in evidence to the committee.