http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24666534-16382,00.html

November 18, 2008
Article from: The Australian

Adoption or institutional care would help many children

ONCE society placed children from troubled backgrounds in institutions, and as we know from inquiries into abuses long ago, forgot about them. Now we place them with individual fostering families, and at times still forget about them. Some children are removed from their parents for temporary foster care, and later sent back, perhaps several times. Monitoring of all foster households is beyond government resources. Children are returned to abusive or neglectful parents whose behaviour goes unmodified. The annual cost to taxpayers in supporting the foster care in private homes is estimated at about $2 billion. Where is the gain?

In the past few decades, child protection has been dominated by the ideal that children should be kept with their genetic parents as much as possible - the costs of which, very occasionally, have included the life of a child. It's estimated there are about 28,000 children in foster care at any one time. The solution would appear to lie in a mix of the new and the old. By all means leave the child in the parental home if bad adult behaviour such as drug taking can be corrected, and try to do this. If the judgment is made by qualified authorities that the situation is hopeless, then remove the child semi-permanently. Encourage adoption of such children, especially infants. Restore institutional care with well-trained and remunerated staff.

Certainly, allow some vetted and monitored foster families to operate within the system - for a few admirable adults, caring for children is a vocation. Our memories of the wicked old days of institutional abuse now serve only as an example of how better to run taxpayer-funded care. It's likely to be cheaper for the nation and more stabilising for children if institutional care and adoption are more widely available. It would more reliable to monitor care in institutions.

As Caroline Overington has revealed in a series of investigative reports in The Australian this month, governments are paying some foster carers $600 or more a week to look after problem children. Those foster parents probably need the money, but the nation has reached the point, morally and financially, where we need to reassess the system. On the Opinion page today, Chris Goddard of Monash University and Joe Tucci of the Australian Childhood Foundation write: "Child protection is dominated by an ideology that claims it is social, economic and cultural forces that cause child abuse and neglect (with) infants and young children subjected to numerous failed attempts at reunification with their birth parents." Research by their organisations and Access Economics estimates the cost of child abuse last year at $10.7billion, and perhaps vastly more. Why do we need to wait longer to act?


What a load of crap, if the department wasn't so hellbent on taking children un-necessarily then this wouldnt be a problem

It is the Department that is running up taxpayers money, they dont mention that thousands of children also get abused in foster care......

When are they going to report the truth!!!!!!!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24539771-29277,00.html

State-care kids in drugs binge

By Doug Robertson

AAP

October 23, 2008 09:25am

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A GROUP of children, including a 10-year-old girl, under state care required hosptial treatment after a drug binge last week.
Some of the group of about six children went to Adelaide's Flinders Medical Centre for treatment after taking prescription drugs in the southern suburbs, Adelaide Now reported.

A girl, 13, was later transferred to the Women's and Children's Hospital.

The group - aged 14 or younger - arranged a meeting between themselves on Friday.

Families and Communities has confirmed the breach of conduct and a spokesman said all the children had been medically cleared and were back in the department's care.

"A number of youths attended hospital for treatment and medical checks," the spokesman said.

"Families SA psychologists and youth workers have been tasked to engage with the young people in coming weeks to minimise the risk of further absconding."

/>The spokesman said the childrens' "care plans" would be reviewed because of the incident.

Families and Communities would not reveal the number or ages of the children involved.


And these children are meant to be in custody of the Department!!!!! They are surely doing their job arent they~~~

By the sound of it... These children are not in foster homes but are actually residing in motels and apartment buildings (this is where DoCS often puts older children).

These protective care accommodation styles are manned by youth workers from agencies that DoCS outsource. Usually it is a 2 person shift with 3 days on and 4 days off and the workers rotate.

Because these youth workers are bound by laws - they are unable to discipline children efficiently. They can not legally stop a child from leaving the premises, they can not force the child to go to school, they can not stop the child from hanging around at shopping centres during school hours and they can not make the child remain in the residence (this list of "can'ts" goes on and on).

In essence - this children are not adequately controlled at all.

If that sort of system is what they term...in the interest of the child....what hope has any society or culture got.....let alone the deprived children and their families

Here on the Gold Coast Direct Care Services (DCR) employ youth workers on massive wages to stay with children who are DoCS kids in motels/hotels and apartment buildings and they move every 2 weeks to another place. DoCS pays for the accommodation and food for these children.

We also have Safe Places for Kids who have a similar situation for DoCS children, but they actually rent private homes and deck them out with appliances, furniture and all other stuff and the child (one child only) resides there with one youth worker.

Direct Care Resources - sorry.

Exactly what i was thinking, they keep telling me I am a good parent, but they want to take my daughter away from me, and put her into what they call a safe environment. How many children are suffering that have been removed from safe families

The information that goes into statistics is based on information that comes directly from DoCS.

Those who gather statistics are lead to believe that the statistics are accurate.

What they are not aware of is the bottom line... And that is the fact that DoCS do not carry out assessments properly, they do not investigate notifications properly and they do remove children from perfectly good homes who should have never been removed in the first place.

So what it boils down to is the fact that the statistics are actually very wrong and blown way out of proportion compared to the actual truth of the numbers of genuinely abused children.

LOL forgot to write something.

ALL the children taken into protective custody are suffering.

Every single last one of them.

The first impact that begins their suffering is the trauma that hits them due to being removed from their family.

Every single child suffers this.

Genuine, real, honest to God instances of child abuse are few and far between and the perpetrator is always charged by the police for it.

If we sit and think about it, there may be 2 instances a year(if that)all over the entire continent of Australia where genuine abuse has occurred.

When a person is charged with REAL child abuse, the media has a field day with it.

We rarely hear about it because genuine child abuse hardly ever occurs.

It cost the SA government, Tax Payers. 16.8 million dollars. In accommodating the children they steal.

I dont have that figures for Qld.

Now this is a really funny, Yet so good.
But so stupid to those that are playing god.FAMILY SA.

I quoted to Family SA " Dont be like QLD,Get it right" and of cos, it fell on a deaf ear.
Now, This is what Im thinking. When this class action kicks in, Family SA will for sure get wind of it.
They made sure they did as much as QLD DOCS did. They didnt do any form of any investigation to be needed of the issue that is so very very FRK'd up.
The only investigation conducted was from a office,reading the documentations that QLD sent them.
They didnt look at the FOI of the police, for it does not correspond to theirs,They didnt take my Proof as affidavits of my whereabouts concerning their claims.
What they did do, was Just used the conviction of unlawful carnal knowledge,then added that it was Girls, when it fact it was only one, Never happened ever again, Just Once, By saying Girls, it makes outs I have this track history.

as I was thinking, when this class action takes off, Family SA will also be Included. and will confirm by their own action, they are just as corrupted.

I am making Sure the world knows of this. and believe me, I know they are here, reading and watching......


2000 yrs ago a man trys to tells the truth, ends up on a cross.
today, a man trys to tell the truth and ends up on the same cross.

Time to get off the cross

Oh!!! WJ:
what was it you said to me the other day.

Family SA and DOCS, do know I am not that person, but has come so far in what they did, was better for them to just brand me ?????.

Yes its easier to brand you than admit they made a mistake, I think the problem lies with that you said to them that u wanted them to bring their cheque book, they will do whatever it takes to cover up their lies and false accusations, and to date they have done that!!!!!!!!!!!!

ya, that seems to make more logics, way easy to cover up then to concede and to mend.

I would really like to know where you get these stats from. I think that they're way out. I can name more than 2 instances of genuine abuse that occured in my community in the last year. Maybe some more thought should have gone into this before you post information that is blatantly incorrect.

that depends what area you are in justiceforall....some are worse than others....they seem to come in pockets......yes , we all know that genuine abuse does happen.....but we are here about the illegal , unhealthy antics of these evil doers.....there is quite a difference.....and even their treatment of those who are truely abused warrents as much attention ....I personally have seen many many being abused from one office alone....and the last option ought to be to put the children in strange families......first option should always be to keep them within the extended family unit.....and those people should not be subjected to continual harrassment, but left to normalise the children...and supported in what they are doing.
From what i see you saying, you have not had the experience of what really does happen therefore i really dont think it right you make such a comment....there is a difference working at a distance and having first hand knowledge....not just from ones own case, but what is witnessed in other cases......

According to Random House Unabridged Dictionary (2006)

Abuse... (noun)

Bad or improper treatment; maltreatment: The child was subjected to cruel abuse.

Maltreatment... (verb)

To treat or handle badly, cruelly, or roughly; abuse: to maltreat a prisoner.

(Notice the instances of the word "cruel" and "cruelly"????)

These definitions are from a dictionary that was only updated 2 years ago. The definition of "abuse" has not changed since archaic times (circa 1400 actually).

The DoCS definition of "abuse" is not a definition what so ever... It is an umbrella term that has as many definitions as can possibly be squeezed underneath it.

This dictionary also refers to masturbation as an idiom for abuse ("abuse oneself") (sorry guys - don't mean to be crude here)... But would a child be removed from it's home due to masturbation? NO!!

DoCS workers would have a giggle amongst themselves about it and a Magistrate would throw it out of court.

My point is that GENUINE abuse (dictionary definition) means criminal charges.

Where do I get my information from? Newspaper clippings about my own husband - thank you very much!!

You're right kickemout, but Rainbowchaser wasn't talking about the illegal antics here. She was talking about GENUINE child abuse.

I believe I do have a right to comment, because I thought that this site was about the truth, and the information provided about the number of genuine abuse cases is not the truth. I may not be directly involved in Child Protection or work for DoCS, but I work in an industry very closely related and I see/hear/know of GENUINE child abuse cases.

Rainbowchaser: DoCS don't refer to abuse they refer to HARM. There is no definition of abuse. Read the CP Act and you'll see what I mean.

Yes genuine abuse cases where the maltreater has been charged are put in the papers, and there are also ones that aren't published. I have worked with these families that have been charged but have not had the information publilsh.

BUT just because you only read some in the paper doesn't mean that there's more REAL cases out there. THAT is my point. You make statements that there is probably only 2 cases of genuine abuse per year for the whole of Australia, and that's just not true! Genuine child abuse happens more than you would ever know!!