Katie’s story: a vexed issue for the foster care system

Few stories on the foster care system are easy - especially when it’s an indigenous child caught between two worlds.

Few stories on the foster care system are easy. They are fraught because they involve children and, often, neglect or abuse; they involve heightened emotions and firm views over who is best placed to raise a child. Journalist Fiona Harari’s story today is particularly difficult – an indigenous baby placed with a white family who believed they would be her permanent carers because the department couldn’t find extended family able to care for her. As time passed, the foster parents allowed themselves to think of her as their daughter and she called them mummy and daddy.

But a family member came forward; she wanted the girl back with kin, and under special provisions that recognise Aboriginal children should be raised in their own culture, that is what happened. The prolonged removal of the distressed child was traumatic for everyone involved. And it led to two indigenous elders familiar with the case criticising the outcome. “She was in a safe place, in a loving home and she was stolen from them because she was Aboriginal,’’ said one. “They would not do that to a white child.”