A parent's worst fear

YOU'RE a single mother working a day job and studying at night, trying to do your best for your children.

YOU'RE a single mother working a day job and studying at night, trying to do your best for your children.

But come the teenage years, one of those children becomes a rebel, a runaway, and eventually a ward of the state because she simply refuses to come home. And there begins a dreadful descent that will impact on generations to come.

COVER STORY: Little girl lost

Trent Dalton's cover story touches the worst fears of all parents but it also examines the plight of children removed from their families because it's just not safe. Some 37,648 children will sleep in foster homes or other out-of-home care situations tonight. It doesn't make for pleasant reading. But surely the upcoming royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse is a signal that it's time to stop looking away from the things in our society we find upsetting or troubling.