SA Child protection minister Katrine Hildyard was aware of pregnant girls in state care

The child protection minister has revealed she found out that several girls in state care were pregnant as soon as she took up the portfolio in March 2022.

Child protection Minister Katrine Hildyard says she was made aware of some South Australian girls in state care being pregnant “immediately” upon taking up the portfolio last March.

The information was released by outgoing chief executive of the department of child protection Cathy Taylor on Monday.

“Immediately upon coming to government, upon becoming the Minister I instituted a range of changes to the notifiable incident procedure to require that I’m always made aware of serious incidents, including pregnancies,” Ms Hildyard told ABC Radio Adelaide.

“Sadly, for as long as the department of child protection has existed there have been instances of your people in case being pregnant, and there are a range of reasons for that being so and each of them is concerning.

The Adevertiser revealed on Monday up to four girls in state care are currently pregnant – but Ms Taylor has refused to disclose other details, including their ages.

Katrine Hildyard. Picture: Newswire / Naomi Jellicoe

Outgoing Child Protection CEO Cathy Taylor. Picture NCA NewsWire / Emma Brasier

Appearing before a parliamentary committee on Monday, Ms Taylor could not say exactly how many girls had become pregnant since the cases of two 13-year-olds were made public in 2020.

“But I can tell you, at this point in time, there’s less than five young women who are pregnant in the system currently,” she said.

Deputy chief executive Fiona Ward said she did not have information about the ages of the girls, but would supply it to the committee “if it doesn’t identify individuals”.

Ms Taylor and Ms Ward were asked by SA-Best MLC Frank Pangallo for an update on the girls who were pregnant in 2020, and on their babies.

The department was criticised at the time after Ms Taylor and former child protection Minister Rachel Sanderson admitted they had not been alerted to the pregnancies.

Those cases formed the basis for a review by retired judge Paul Rice, which found there were cultural issues within the department.

Ms Taylor, who resigned in January but will remain in the role until the end of April, declined to provide an update on the girls’ situation.

“(The two young women) raised with us concerns that they were being identified, not by their name but because of their individual circumstances,” she said.

Opposition child protection spokesman Josh Teague called on Ms Hildyard to “tell us what she knows about these (current) cases”.

“We now have a situation where the child protection system is in crisis and there appear to be multiple pregnancies which are of huge concern,” he said.

But Ms Hildyard said the department was required to fully brief her on the circumstances of each pregnancy.

“One of the very first actions I took on becoming Minister child protection was to completely overhaul the inadequate notification system that the former Liberal government had set up — a system where the former Minister was not even aware of pregnancies,” she said.

Ms Taylor also told the hearing she had not been pressured into resigning, and said her decision to quit had come as “a complete and utter surprise” to the offices of Ms Hildyard and Premier Peter Malinauskas.

“The only person who made a decision about it being time (to resign) was me,” she said.

“Please rest assured, this is a Cathy Taylor ‘it’s time’ decision.”

Ms Taylor’s replacement has not been announced, but the opposition said it was rumoured the job would go to Department for Human Services acting chief executive Sandy Pitcher.

Ms Pitcher, who also fronted the committee on Monday, said she had not been approached about the role.