Former Townsville foster carer says treatment from Department of Child Safety forced her to quit

Shaking and reduced to tears, a former Townsville foster carer recounts how her life will never be the same after claiming treatment from Child Safety forced her to leave her dream job.

SHAKING and reduced to tears, a former Townsville foster carer recounts how her life will never be the same after claiming treatment from Child Safety forced her to leave her dream job.

The former carer, who was in the industry for years and opened her home to more than 50 kids, said manipulation, bullying, under reporting and a lack of action by the Department of Child Safety caused her to begrudgingly leave her job last year.

“My doctor said you have to make a call, you’re going to go like this and totally break or you’re going to walk away from the children,” she said as emotion overcame her.

“It breaks me to think about all the children who have missed out on a home because I left.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get over that. I could be helping children, and now I can’t.”

A former foster mother says she was forced to quit her dream job because of a toxic environment within the child safety system.

Her story comes after the Bulletin revealed shocking inner workings of the system in an expose last week.

The investigation featured a former child safety officer turned whistleblower who said the entire system needed to be thoroughly reviewed after reports children were being forcibly reunified with abusive biological parents.

The foster carer told the Bulletin that she too had witnessed incidents of reunification where the kids weren’t being put first.

She spoke about a sibling group who had lived under her roof for almost a year when the department started attempts to reunite the kids with their parents.

A few months before reunification, a friend of the family put up their hand to take the kids. So, they were moved.

The former foster mother says there is no support for carers and says there should be counsellors provided for them.

“I don’t understand why they couldn’t just leave them here as we continue the transition to mum and dad instead of bouncing these children around.

“Child Safety officers are all about legislation and meeting their targets, there’s no common sense.”

One of the former carer’s biggest issues came when Child Safety issued her with a breach for enforcing what she describes as basic parental boundaries on a 14-year-old boy.

This child had been “badly groomed” by his father, had come from a residential care house, was aggressive and mirroring bad behaviours.

“I could never not keep an eye on him,” she said.

The Bulletin revealed last week how children in foster care were being reunited with their abusive biological family. Photo: Cade Mooney/Sunshine Coast Daily

The carer raised multiple concerns about the young boy to Child Safety, including his substance abuse, anger and inappropriate behaviours, and asked for more help.

It all fell on deaf ears.

“If you argue with Child Safety, they honestly get their back up. It’s like they have complete rule over everything, they’re like little Hitlers. They’re horrible.”

The carer said there was a time when her foster kids didn’t see their Child Safety officer for six months.

There was another time when a child wanted to disclose an incident to the police, and she waited months for Child Safety to approve the request.

She says there needs to be more child safety officers, who are better trained with more life experience, if anything was going to change.

“Not just in legislation, but in training about unpacking a child’s problems. But right now they need to talk to the foster carers.”

Department of Children director general Deidre Mulkerin had met with multiple departmental staff, carers, advocates and support agencies to hear some of the recent concerns last week.

Ms Mulkerin said a number of new measures were being put in place to help support carers more in wake of the recent issues being raised.

“I will never pretend that it’s perfect every week. What I heard from them was genuine concerns for the children they were caring for,” she said.

Ms Mulkerin said there are 100 child safety officers in Townsville who were professionally trained, and underwent a series of training sessions from legal understanding to understanding disabilities.

She said more child safety officers were always welcomed, but demand in other sectors was high.

Originally published as Former Townsville foster carer says treatment from Department of Child Safety forced her to quit