Lukes Army Please read about my son and help seek justice for his death. Child safety ignored my complaints and placed him in a foster home with a 74 year old foster carer who already had 3 older children crammed into a tiny unit. While he lay there dying with a fractured skull I rang the head of child safety in Cairns, Pat Anderson and she would not return my call. This was the third time in a week I tried to contact her about my son being there. I was given her name by the department of child safety complaints line as they thought it was serious too. Please leave a post on Luke's site or become a member of Luke's Army.

Would you trust your child with the department of child safety? single choice
	Yes
	Under no circumstances
	Under some circumstances
Votes accepted starting: Sun 05 Jul 2009 04:37:PM
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This is the most horrible thing I've heard about in a long time. I feel sick about it for you. I am so sorry. How incredibly unjust.

Bless you and Good luck with your fight! From what I have read on this forum, you are amongst many others who have been victimized and share your anger and desire for change.

Hi,
Can someone go over to Alt news and tell Graham i think he is a complete cad. It annoys me how he wrote that comment to Luke's dad, it isn't as if it is his emotions involved and then to think he is the be all and publicly berates Michael for not thanking him for his suggestions. I find it very annoying to read and it exposes more about him and his than anything else.

Anyway L:uke's dad I hope you are travelling ok. You have people who hear what you say and share your concerns.

I am sorry to hear about your son's tragic passing. The question I have is why was your child in care in the first place?

There seems to be more children in foster care, then there are available carers to look after them. It seems to me that the Foster Carers are placed in very difficult positions as well. Children need to be placed andoften there is no one to take them, so ultimately the carer makes heart felt decisions to take on extra kids, even thought they may have reservations about the placement for what ever reason.

I know a good family who has a sibbling group of kids, they only signed up for one child, but, after learning about the childrens situation living in residential care with youth workers the decided to take on 3 kids, they are good people and care about the youngsters in their care, when they realised that there was a chronic shortage of carers they felt obligated to take on the sibbling group.


I can tell you, it has been no easy ride for this family, they are a loving caring family who have big hearts and for their generosity and compassion they are subjected to ridiculous and malicious allegations on a daily basis There is no foundation to such malicious and far fetched allergations made by family members. They have been subjected to abuse by the family and had personal attacks and defamation, it is as if this family blames the carers for the children being in care.

The Childrens Biological family tell anyone and everyone that will listen a half baked story about their plight to become the legal guardians of these children, however, no one wanted the children until they were placed with this family. The Biological family also tell everyone they meet that the carers have ruined the childrens lives, yet the children have flourished in the care of my friends, they have gone from kids who were unruly and ill mannered to kids with good manners and well behaved. These kids adore my friends, people often mistake them for a biological family as the relationship is very good. Yet they are constantly hounded and accused by the family of wrong doing.

They have been accused of doing foster care for the money but realistically this is a joke by anyones standards as they get around $1.20 per hour to look after these kids and provide the neccessities of life and the wants and needs of the children lets say that we be conservative and each meal cost about $3.50 each thats thats $10.50 for three main meals and then their is school recess and snackes lets say that is $3.00 a day then we are up to $13.50 now that is is half of the money paid for foster care allowance per child then there is clothes, shoes, school fees, excusions and other day to day expenses, not to mention medicine and toys. this family also makes sure that the children have gifts for their biological family. the children go on regular outings to theme parks and cultural places of interest yet the carers have no rights and are under supported by Docs and are subjected to abuse by people on the other side of the fence.

I know you son was mistreated by someone and that is tragic and no little person should go through that, I deeply feel for you and offer you my deepest sympathy for your loss, but, not all decisions are made as black and white as they may seem.

Carers often try to contact docs for weeks with out replies in fact carers are often put in a position where they have to make decisions and hope that they are not going to pay a price for it as they have contacted docs 4,5,6 times and no return calls or emails.

its really sad.......
and this is the most bad thing i have ever heard

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