FACS ‘failure’: Coroner snaps after babies’ death
A CORONER has urged Family and Community Services Minister Pru Goward to urgently fix any resourcing problems within the department, saying “we are currently failing children who need our help”.
NSW
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A CORONER has urged Family and Community Services Minister Pru Goward to urgently fix any resourcing problems within the department, saying “we are currently failing children who need our help”.
Magistrate Harriet Grahame’s call for change was contained in findings into the deaths of two Sydney infant half-sisters born to an ice-addicted mother who tragically died within 15 months of each other.
It comes as a separate damning report kept under wraps for two years was released this week labelling NSW’s child protection system “ineffective and unsustainable”.
The independent review into out-of-home care was commissioned by the state government in November 2015 and released after pressure in parliament.
It stated: “the system is failing to improve long-term outcomes for children and to arrest the devastating cycles of intergenerational abuse and neglect”.
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The report’s release follows a five-day inquest held earlier this year into the two tragic half-sisters, known only as BL and DG, which heard how more than a dozen reports dating back to 2010 were made to FACS about neglect, drug use and violence within the family.
However they were repeatedly ignored and closed due to “competing priorities”.
BL was aged three months when she was found lifeless in her cot in 10 April 2014. Her sister, DG, was placed into foster care the day after her birth in June 2015 but she died soon after at just 19 days of age.
“The problem is clear and urgent. We are currently failing children who need our help,” Magistrate Grahame said.
“Sometimes that failure happens because we give up before we have properly assessed the danger they face.
“If this problem is a resourcing issue, then it needs to be escalated to the highest level.”
Magistrate Grahame said that DG received appropriate care and attention while in foster care, but criticised FACS for the “complete lack of support” before and during the mother’s pregnancy, saying planning to ensure “the child’s safety seems to have been left to the last minute”.
She found both girls had died from Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI), but this was otherwise “undetermined”.
“While the cause of death for each of her children was ultimately undetermined, what emerged was a picture of bureaucratic failure and an ongoing inadequate response to a family in genuine need,” she said.
The mother and the children’s maternal grandmother regularly used drugs around BL and her two older brothers, the court heard.
In her 65-page report, Magistrate Grahame said that although FACS now has a new case closure policy this still allows for risk-of-significant-harm reports about kids to be closed for “competing priorities”.
“In my view, it is well and truly time to dismantle this policy,” she said.
“FACS is the agency in NSW tasked with a statutory responsibility for protecting children and young people from risk of significant harm.
“That is a responsibility that cannot be shifted by creating a culture where overworked staff can close reports, claiming a lack of resources or “competing priorities”.
“Failures of the kind made in relation to (this) family should not be swept under the carpet.
“The Minister and Secretary must be made to grapple openly with these issues at the highest level and to find solutions to the resourcing issues identified.
“…. If we regularly cannot even make contact with children who have been assessed as being at risk of significant harm, the issue must be taken up by the Minister.”
Magistrate Grahame made five recommendations for change for FACS including that reports about children at risk of harm which were unallocated could not be closed for competing priorities prior to assessment in a meeting.
Last night a spokeswoman for Ms Goward said she would consider the Coroner’s findings.
“If there is more that needs to be done we will do it,” she said.
“FACS and its NGO partners need to continuously review their practices to ensure that high standards of care for our most vulnerable children are always met.”
