Kylie Lang: No, children aren’t always better off with biological parents

The terrible case of 14-year-old E.J. is only the latest reminder that some people should never be parents, writes Kylie Lang.

“Children are always better off being cared for by a biological parent.” This tenet is as dangerous as the one about kids doing best when raised in a traditional family unit where Mum and Dad stay together no matter what.

The harsh truth is some adults are not fit to breed.

And others, even with the best of intentions, should forfeit their right to parent when the environment they create is toxic and destructive.

Governments continue to ignore these commonsense realities. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of vulnerable children die or endure horrific lives – and it should be said, often go on to perpetrate the awful treatment they received on their own offspring. A vicious cycle indeed. Just don’t expect our so-called leaders to do anything about it.

After every tragedy is exposed, there is the familiar sound of back-pedaling. We’re told by politicians that they’re working on the issues and making great strides forward.

What a crock.

The terrible case of E.J. – a 14-year-old boy who suicided after a lifetime of sexual and physical abuse by his father – makes for sickening reading.

But what should also make our blood boil, if we are a society that truly cares for at-risk children, is the lack of action to overhaul a department that is catastrophically failing so many. Remember Mason Jet Lee, whose mother and stepfather were jailed over his horrific 2016 death; in 2020 a coroner found a child safety officer on the toddler’s case had “no idea of her basic role or even that her job was the protection of children”.

Children are not always best off with their natural parents. (File picture)

The incompetence is staggering. Like Mason, E.J. was well-known to the Department of Children. And as revealed in The Courier-Mail this week, a coroner found the department missed numerous vital chances to give E.J. the support he desperately needed. E.J. spent most of his life with his “highly controlling” father who not only sexually abused him from infancy but also beat him, tried to strangle him, threatened him with a knife, and flushed his head in the toilet.

E.J.’s mother suffered mental health issues and trauma from her own childhood abuse and couldn’t properly care for him.

The parents of E.J.’s best friend applied for long-term guardianship in June 2018 and while the boy finally felt loved, his historic trauma was insurmountable. He suicided six months later.

In non-inquest findings, acting coroner Ainslie Kirkegaard ruled the department failed to investigate the abuse by E.J.’s father, engaged in “victim blaming”, and did not do enough to help the boy in his final weeks. An internal review, meanwhile, found child safety received 18 reports of harm to E.J. and his two siblings before formal intervention occurred in 2016.

The department ignored a domestic violence order against E.J.’s father, an order designed to protect the children, and – unbelievably – urged E.J. to go back to his abusive parent. To top off this utter disgrace, a second review by The Coroner’s Court of Queensland Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Unit found the government’s internal review missed several issues.

In his final 12 months, E.J. had 20 different child safety officers and 14 senior team leaders on his case.

Coroner Kirkegaard found these people were “largely absent”, leaving teachers and foster carers scrambling for referrals to specialists to address E.J.’s mental health.

This poor child was comprehensively failed by the system but the Minister for Children’s response? It was off-point and a shameless attempt at deflection – the default position of this government whenever caught out on its incompetence.

Leanne Linard talked up “ongoing reforms” to protect children in violent homes, including the implementation of the “Safe and Together model to ensure staff know how to help these families”.

For kids like E.J., that model, which aims to keep a child with a non-offending parent, would have been useless as his mother was unfit.

Ms Linard also boasted about improved staff training and a review process.

She said: “When a child dies or is seriously injured and they were known to the department in the 12 months prior, we now undertake one internal review with external oversight by experts, including coroners, academics and the independent Child Death Review Board.”

Again, this was of zero benefit to E.J., and others like him who were never saved.

And let’s not forget the internal review into E.J.’s case missed several issues – so you have to wonder if such reviews serve any purpose other than creating the illusion of a response. Ms Linard said the aim was to have “the most robust system in place”.

Every child deserves such a system, Minister, but the one we have now is not even close.

The tragic case of E.J. is just further proof that when it comes to child safety, this government is clueless.

LOVE

● The diligent but too rarely celebrated work of scientists. Researchers from Griffith University and the University of Alberta are starting clinical trials for a vaccine against Strep A, a bacteria which causes sepsis, meningitis and toxic shock syndrome and kills more than 500,000 people each year.

LOATHE

● The stupidity of some people. The US National Park Service has issued a plea to visitors not to lick toads. The amphibians’ toxin has hallucinogenic properties and is strong enough to make humans sick.

● The stockpiling of soft plastic items, which consumers have handed back for recycling, at Coles and Woolies – find a solution.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail