Qld child safety inquiry: Carer investigated after saving teen's life

The man leading the inquiry into Queensland’s child safety system has highlighted the case of a support worker investigated after preventing a suicide.

Paul Anastassiou KC on the opening day of the inquiry. Picture: Tertius Pickard/NCA NewsWire

A residential care worker who intervened to save a child from suicide was investigated for three months, illustrating the limitations on child safety officers, the man probing the state’s child safety system says.

Opening the commission of inquiry into the state’s child safety system, Paul Anastassiou KC said there was a critical gap between workers’ duty of care and the authority they were given to protect children.

In the incident, a Townsville girl had attempted to leap into traffic before being pulled back by her support worker.

“The young girl fell backwards on to her bottom, involving some bruising, but her life was saved,” Mr Anastassiou said.

“This issue of course was recorded, but there then followed an investigation spanning some three months into the action taken by the support worker.

“One may also ask whether carers are sufficiently supported when adverse incidents occur through no fault of their own, and also whether there is clarity about what carers may do to protect those in their care and harm themselves, or harming the carers themselves.”

Mr Anastassiou also outlined concerns about soaring costs and worsening outcomes in the out-of-home care system, with annual spending rising from $396.1m to $1.67bn in just over a decade.

He also pointed to alarming crossover between children in care and those entering youth detention.

Child Safety Minister Amanda Camm on Wednesday. Picture: Tertius Pickard/NCA NewsWire

The inquiry will also examine 780 reported cases of children going missing from care and the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the youth justice system.

While Mr Anastassiou said the commission would avoid simplistic conclusions, he stressed the need to question whether the child protection system was effectively designed to prevent vulnerable children from entering detention.

CREATE Foundation CEO Imogen Edeson said some young people were avoiding residential care altogether by choosing to couch surf or sleep on the streets due to safety concerns, feeling unheard, or experiencing coercive treatment from staff.

“If some young people are choosing homelessness over residential care, this raises serious questions,” she said.

Child Safety Minister Amanda Camm, the fifth to hold the portfolio in five years, said the commission’s terms were deliberately left broad to allow a wide-ranging investigation.

She criticised what she described as a growing reliance on short-term crisis care, which has now become a $1.2bn industry, with individual placements costing up to $40,000 a month.

Ms Camm said too many unregulated providers were profiting from the state’s most vulnerable, and signalled an intent to rein in the system’s long-term use of high-cost placements.

She said the number of children leaving care without being detected raised alarm bells.

Opposition spokeswoman Shannon Fentiman said drug use, alcohol, and domestic violence were well-established factors driving children into care, and hoped the inquiry would delve into the deeper causes of the state’s child protection crisis.

Originally published as Qld child safety inquiry: Carer investigated after saving teen's life