Indigenous input to stem care spike

In a bid to halve the number of indigenous children in state protection, West Australian authorities will adopt Aboriignal Family-led Decision Making.

West Australian Child Protection minister Simone McGurk at Hilton Primary school, . Picture: Colin Murty

Child protection authorities in Western Australia will give Indigenous parents a greater role in preventing record numbers of their children coming in care, in a bid to meet new Closing the Gap targets aimed at nearly halving that number within a decade.

Indigenous children in WA make up a disproportionate 56 per cent of minors in state care. They also tend to be removed at a younger age and spend longer in care than non-Indigenous children.

Child Protection Minister Simone McGurk said the state would trial Aboriginal Family-Led Decision Making, a model adopted in Victoria and Queensland that allows parents and relatives to actively participate in finding a safe place for a child after a report of neglect or abuse.

Ms McGurk welcomed the nat­ional target of reducing Indigenous child removals by 45 per cent over 10 years, although she said it was “ambitious … We have always been mindful of the need for new interventions because business-as-usual is not working.”

The $715,000 two-year pilot will focus on preventing infants from coming into care, but will also be offered to parents with children on time-limited protection orders where plans are being made to place a child back home. It will include families working with the department to prevent a child being removed into care.

The Noongar Family Safety and Wellbeing Council has welcomed the pilot program, saying it will help address the power imbalance between the department and parents who battle to keep their children.

Council adviser and lawyer Hannah McGlade said the model should be adopted in all cases of child removal and enshrined in law. “To date, the department and minister have continued to oppose it having a statutory basis,” she said. “We urge them to reconsider because no significant decisions should be made by the department without family having an opportunity to be heard.”

In a test case Dr McGlade brought on behalf of a relative’s family in 2018, she said the court ordered that Aboriginal family-led decision-making be applied and recommended it be applied “to many cases, if not all cases”.

A new child protection bill before the WA parliament will incorporate recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, but unlike Queensland the bill will not specify the use of Aboriginal-led decision-making.

Ms McGurk said it was always the intention to trial the model first, and to follow Queensland’s example by first strengthening the ability of Aboriginal-­controlled community organisations to assist families. “We do want to build up Aboriginal involvement in the placement of children, because clearly we can’t resolve the over-representation issue on our own,” she said.