Hi,

Today in The Australian (November 18, 2008; page 7) there is further articles about "Child Abuse costing Community $11bn". It goes to say that a report published by Access Economics counts the cost of child abuse on the health, education and welfare systems. It goes on to point out there is no current reliable national data on the number of Australian children suffering child abuse. this organisation extrapolated from Australian Bureau of Statistics data on personal safety to arrive at a 'conservative' figure of 177,000 children.

What I see as a better article is from yesterday's The Australian (17.11.2008; page 7).
It is titled "Fostering Trouble".
It says "Fostering care doesn't work in the long term"; "there are 28,000 children in care, double the number in 1997".
"By the age of eight or 10, many of these children are so damaged they can no longer stay in foster homes. They spend a few years bouncing around the system, from one foster home to anotherm and then bouncing from youth hostel to police station to the street, before ending up in jail."

This article goes on to mention 4 suggestions
1. Abolish mandatory reporting
2. Prop up the birth parents.
3. Pay and train staff properly.
4. Speed up the adoption process.