NSW to ban motels, caravan parks as emergency homes for children

The NSW Labor government will ban children from being housed in motels and caravan parks supervised by shift workers from labour-hire companies after the last-resort care emergency option was described as akin to a “dog moved from cage to cage”.

The controversial so-called alternative care arrangements (ACA) have come under the spotlight after the NSW Advocate for Children and Young People earlier this year reported a litany of disturbing testimonies by children living in state-funded emergency care.

One 14-year-old said they had been allowed to “roam off” for weeks without their disappearance being reported, while others disclosed allegations of sexual assault, drug use and being left alone in motel rooms without close supervision.

The NSW Labor government says the use of motels and caravan parks for emergency accommodation for children “skyrocketed” under the Coalition.Credit: Supplied

Emergency care takes up a disproportionate amount of that funding – taxpayers spent half a billion dollars on it in six years, and the cost of those arrangements can be as high as $2 million per child each year.

Under emergency care, children are placed in hotels, motels, caravan parks and short-term rental accommodation where they are supervised by unaccredited staff from labour-hire companies.

The Minns government has consistently raised concerns with the use of alternative care arrangements and has worked to reduce the number of children in them.

As of August 16, 2024, some 39 children were in alternative care arrangements, compared to 139 in November last year. Those children still in the emergency care option will return to their parents, be placed with a foster carer or relative, or be supported in an “intensive therapeutic care” environment.

Intensive therapeutic care is a service system for children aged over 12 with complex needs who are recovering from the most severe forms of trauma and neglect and need extra support in foster care.

The government has recruited about 200 extra foster carers to help support these children when they are being moved out of emergency accommodation.

System ‘out of control’

Families and Communities Minister Kate Washington said the former government allowed the child protection system to “spiral out of control” and the use of emergency accommodation providers for vulnerable children “skyrocketed”.

“Since I became minister, I’ve made it very clear that vulnerable children do not belong in hotels, motels or caravan parks with shift workers instead of foster carers,” Washington said.

“We acted early, and we’re already seeing meaningful results, with the number of children in unaccredited alternative care arrangements falling by 72 per cent in just eight months.”

Although they are meant to be short-term arrangements, children’s advocate Zoe Robinson found “what has developed is a practice of using ACAs for prolonged placements”, with an average stay of about 120 days.

“However, there have also been clear instances where children and young people have been placed in ACAs for more than 600 days,” Robinson wrote in her report earlier this year.

In one first-person testimony, a 16-year-old boy who had been in emergency accommodation for more than 500 days told the inquiry he felt like a dog being moved from “cage to cage”.

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