Kids endangered by push to reunite families: Bravehearts
The Child Safety Department has a flawed focus which is putting our littlest and most vulnerable citizens in harm’s way, according to an activist.
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CHILDREN should be taken away from dangerous parents sooner and the state’s child protection system needs a complete overhaul, an impassioned advocate says.
In the wake of multiple tragedies, the latest in which two young girls known to the Department of Child Safety died, Bravehearts chief executive Hetty Johnston said a prime focus to reunite families was flawed.
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Ms Johnston said there were multiple warning signs, but no action to save the children.
“The department were aware of it, police were aware of it and other agencies were aware of it and those kids stayed in that situation,” Ms Johnston told The Courier-Mail.
“We don’t own children as parents, we have a responsibility to protect them.
“At the end of the day, the system spends a whole bunch of time worrying about the civil rights and human rights of adults and parents and not enough time worrying about the human rights of children to be protected.
“We are frozen in fear from the stolen generation.”
Ms Johnston said further funding for child safety and a more enhanced IT system was needed in the department to help prioritise cases.
The tragedy of the two girls follows multiple department-known children deaths and the high-profile deaths of toddler Mason Jet Lee and schoolgirl Tiahleigh Palmer.
Child Safety Minister Di Farmer last month said a child was referred to the department every four minutes. There were 10,248 children in care and the number of children taken into care in the past 12 months had doubled that of the previous year.
Figures show funding on protective intervention services dropped from about $330 million in 2011-12 to $286 million in 2017-18.
When asked why funding had decreased, a government spokeswoman said data reporting methods had changed and it was not possible to compare the two periods.
Ms Farmer said as part of reforms, the department was doing more to intervene early so children could stay safely with their families.
The Government has still not passed laws to change the state’s child death review system recommended after the death of Mason Jet Lee.
Family and Child Commissioner Cheryl Vardon recommended an independent model for reviewing the deaths of children known to the child protection system and transferring responsibility for the child death case review panel to an independent government agency.
Ms Johnston said there was a barrage of awful parenting in Queensland and the department was playing Russian roulette.
“They’ve got all these matters and they are saying which one is going to kill their kids,” she said.
“Thresholds are too high, we don’t have enough placements for children so they just leave them where they are.
“I’m not saying (we need) an institution, but you do need something because people don’t want to be foster carers, they don’t want to be given a child that they then fall in love (with) to only have the child ripped off them again and given back to a druggie parent and getting put back into a situation that is unsafe.”
Ms Johnston said in her 23 years as an advocate, she was contacted weekly by foster parents complaining their children were being returned back to drug-addicted parents.
“Our prime thing to reunite families I think is flawed,” she said.
“The prime thing should be to keep children safe.”
LNP leader Deb Frecklington said that Queensland’s child safety system was broken.
“Too many innocent young children known to the system are being killed,” she said.
“As a mum of three girls, my heart breaks. No stone should go unturned in protecting our most vulnerable children.
“Labor’s child safety crisis stems from years of cover-ups, secret reports and endless excuses.
“Astonishingly Annastacia Palaszczuk still hasn’t fully implemented recommendations from either Mason Jet Lee’s and Tiahleigh Palmer’s deaths more than two years ago.’’
Ms Farmer said the number of children in need of protection by Child Safety at the end of investigations had reduced from 4460 in 2013 to 3910 in 2019.
She said when the LNP was in government from 2013 to 2015, it cut $182 million in funding and 400 child safety positions.
“In 2012-13, the Child and Family Services budget was $774 million, with 2258 staff,” she said.
“In 2019-20 it is a budget of $1.33 billion, with 3312 Child Safety staff.”
Originally published as Kids endangered by push to reunite families: Bravehearts