Foster and Kinship Care inquiry by Dr Fiona Arney urges system shake-up

Sending a child to school without a jumper or forgetting to sign their diary may be a minor mishap for biological parents. For foster carers they can trigger investigations, an inquiry has found.

Foster carers are being investigated over “trivial” concerns that would not be raised against biological parents, and an inquiry has found it is scaring people off helping children who need a safe home.

The inquiry heard examples of “frivolous” reports against carers whose child did not have a jumper or lunchbox at school, had a bug in their hair, head lice or a runny nose or was playing in a tent in their backyard.

Carers were investigated for not signing a child’s diary, having a dog in the house with an infant or being unavailable to take a phone call from the Child Protection Department.

The inquiry, by child protection expert Dr Fiona Arney, has urged sweeping changes to the way allegations against carers - known as Care Concerns - are handled, warning the current system leaves them feeling “blindsided”, “petrified” of losing foster children and nervous about asking for help in case they are deemed “not coping”.

Foster carers are being investigated over “trivial” concerns that would not be raised against biological parents, and an inquiry has found. Picture: File

“Carers described being treated like criminals, but without the same rights, including the ability to know the allegations against them and prepare a defence,” Dr Arney wrote.

She said the care concern process “is doing more harm than it is designed to prevent” and “does not appear to provide any sound means of detecting and responding to abuse in care”.

It is “undoubtedly impacting on carer recruitment and retention”.

The department says it has 3815 registered primary carers.

There are about 1690 children living with foster carers and 2363 living with relatives or people close to them, known as kinship carers.

However, more than 820 children were taken into care for the first time in 2020-21 alone and the system is in constant need of more safe homes for children removed from their parents.

Dr Arney’s review was commissioned late last year by the state government following lobbying from carers and received more than 200 submissions.

Foster carers are being investigated over “trivial” concerns that would not be raised against biological parents, and an inquiry has found. Picture: iStock

She found care concerns could be raised and investigated by the same departmental worker and the system was “potentially open to abuse through malicious or coercive care concerns”.

However, the department did not publish data on how many care concerns were investigated, she said.

Many submissions noted allegations against carers “have a very low threshold compared to allegations raised about biological families”.

Unproven concerns remained on carers’ files even when “the events described could not have taken place or where the care concerns pertained to a different carer”.

A spokeswoman for the department said it “recognises the care concern process requires reform and planning for this is underway”.

Child Protection Minister Katrine Hildyard said Dr Arney’s recommendations were being “actively considered”.