Protect your unborn child ... or else

PREGNANT women who endanger their unborn child through drug or alcohol abuse could be forced to have their babies taken away.

pregnant woman

PREGNANT women who endanger their unborn child through drug or alcohol abuse could be forced to change their behaviour or have their baby taken away.

The state government will consider introducing new laws to crack down on deadbeat parents, with Minister for Family and Community Services Pru Goward warning that the community will not tolerate parents who do not protect their children.

A discussion paper detailing sweeping changes to child protection laws will be released next week, and will go to community consultation.

The government intends to introduce the relevant legislation to parliament next year.

The changes proposed include giving courts the power to force parents to go to rehabilitation - whether the child is born or not - and extending the period that troubled parents are monitored by community services from six months to a year.

The extended family of children in danger will also be encouraged to intervene, and will have the power to take over some parental responsibilities if the parent knowingly puts their children in danger. Ms Goward said the changes would "require all families to step up to the plate".

She said the number of children in out of home care was unacceptably high, almost doubling from 9273 in 2002 to 18,169 this year.

"I always think foster care is a sign everything else has failed, it's a last resort," Ms Goward said.

"We do think we need to get tougher on parents, but we also have to involve parents. We have to say to them: this society expects you to change, we see that as a requirement."

Ms Goward said the tougher laws for pregnant women and their partners would apply to families that are known to the Department of Family and Community Services, and who have a history of substance abuse or domestic violence.

"It gives us the capacity to engage those parents, before the child is born and to offer them support," she said. "You might say this is extremely radical, bound to fail, but in fact, it's common sense.

"The court has always been able to mandate what happens to a child, but it has never been able to say to parents: if you want to keep this child I order you to go to a drug and alcohol program."More than 60,000 children were reported to community services in 2010-11 as being at risk of "significant harm".