SPEECH
Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021
…This bill makes a number of improvements to a system that quite often fails vulnerable children in its care. I have seen it. I have worked in it.
It puts the well-being of children at the centre of decision-making. It is a stepping stone to reducing the number of traumatised children ending up in care, and this government must ensure a therapeutic and holistic approach is embedded across the system.
February 10, 2022
Tania MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (21:37):
I rise to speak on the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021. I would like to thank everybody for their contributions so far, but in particular there were a lot of remarks that Mark Gepp MP made that really resonated, I am sure, not only with me but with other members and people who are listening. I commend you on your dedication to children, and you have conveyed that in many of your speeches, Mr Gepp, over time in this place. I think that certainly needs to be acknowledged.
We know that this bill makes a number of improvements to a system that quite often fails vulnerable children in its care. I have seen it. I have worked in it. I applaud those workers who are in that position, who are doing their best. I can remember working with a woman, and she used to carry tins of tuna and biscuits and things in her handbag. And I said to her, ‘Michelle, how do you go when you go into a supermarket? Why have you got all this food in there?’. And she said, ‘Because when I work with these vulnerable children I never know when I’m going to get a meal break. I never know where I might be in two or three hours from now. I could be out the back of Bourke. I could be anywhere’. I was more concerned about her getting picked up for shoplifting, but that is the life they lead.
Those workers are so incredibly dedicated. This bill needs to make our system easier for those workers. They do live and breathe their work, and I commend every child protection worker who commits their life to supporting these vulnerable children. We know that there has been report after report from the Commission for Children and Young People, and we know there is still such a long way to go to achieve safety and good outcomes for these children. When the system fails these children, there is pure heartbreak. It is children who live without the benefits of lasting connections, trust, safety and security.
These children are shuffled through multiple out-of-home placements and multiple caseworkers, never really knowing where they belong, some never really knowing and understanding why they been removed. A child has so much love for a parent no matter how that parent treats them.
It is up to us as a Parliament to do better for these children—not only these children but the families they are born into. It is imperative that we do not just work with the child but we work with the family, we work with support organisations and we make easier those necessary changes to prevent these families from being vulnerable, to assist these families to become stronger and to give them the support, the knowledge and the education so these children do not need to be removed.
Many of these children have suffered trauma. Then with their being removed from the home the trauma perpetuates and then as they are returned and are removed again, and then they go back and then they are removed again—it goes on and on and it becomes a revolving door of chaos. I have often used a really bizarre analogy, but it is one that I think is so true: you cannot take a child out of Afghanistan, send them to Hawaii for a week, bring them back to Afghanistan and expect them to make changes to their behaviour. It is not realistic. It is not practical without us supporting the families that these children live in. Why are we so dependent on the children making the changes to their own behaviour? That is something that really has always resonated with me. We put so much focus on the child changing their behaviour without giving them and their family the supports to do so.
A lot of these vulnerable children are more likely to suffer mental illness and substance abuse, endure sexual abuse and violence, have low educational attainment and ultimately, for some, have contact with juvenile justice. Ultimately they become adults who are more likely to experience poverty, continued mental health challenges, ongoing substance abuse and unemployment—or worse. They are more likely to commit crime, to perpetuate abuse themselves—and against themselves—and to have their own children removed and to end up in prison.
This is not some far-flung thought process; this is what I have worked with. I have spoken to so many organisations and stakeholders who live with and see this time and time again. These are not are not the outcomes that they want for vulnerable children and families. This is not the outcome we want for adults. Nobody wants children left in homes where they are unsafe and neglected, but unfortunately that is a regular occurrence across our state every day—and we simply must do better.
The system is under such strain that often it is only in the most critical of cases where children are removed, and when they are there is sometimes nowhere for them to go—perhaps a hotel room accompanied by a revolving door of caseworkers or a residential setting that is not matched to their age or circumstances and possibly does not offer therapeutic care. We see what happens when intervention programs are too short and where the workforce and funding are stretched too thin.
I keep harking back to the need for early and intensive support to get families back on track and to help them stay on track. I must say at this point that I think the decision to reduce and in many cases stop child protection workers having face-to-face visits with at-risk children during the pandemic is one we should never see again. In 2020–21 the commissioner for children and young people was notified of 45 children who died after having contact with child protection.
In two of those cases the face-to-face contact reduced and the direct supports ceased during such a critical time. As the commissioner said, this meant children already at risk of abuse and neglect were even less visible to organisations and critical services. This should never be repeated, and we must do better.
There is a plethora of people working in the sector who, as I said before, give their heart and soul to helping these children and families that they work with. These are people who are born to do this work. Their passion and their commitment is just absolutely so appreciated, and the gratitude I have for those workers is beyond belief.
There are incredible foster carers and kinship carers, but there are not nearly enough of them. There are others who play a vital role in these children’s lives, such as teachers, social workers, occupational therapists, caseworkers and volunteers. Volunteers in our community play an enormous role in supporting these young people and their families. I recognise also that this is very complex work. It can be overwhelming, frustrating and bureaucratic. The policy development itself is very complex, and I am grateful to the minister, staff and department, who have provided me with briefings on the work being done to improve the system. I do say that I am very grateful to the government for bringing this bill to us, and I think it is an enormous start to better protecting our vulnerable children.
Clause 35 of this bill makes a symbolic change to best-interest principles that I hope will deliver a more child-centred approach to decision-making in the future. The focus of decision-making should be orientated to the wellbeing of the children, and sometimes this should be over the rights of parents. This includes making decisions in the best interests of the child and ensuring the child has a voice in the process.
A case in point was made by someone to my office who is working with a sibling group, noting they had been removed from the home 18 months ago for very serious family violence, parental drug use and neglect. They are now safe, cared for, learning, sleeping, eating. Most importantly, they are being children. Unfortunately contact visits trigger trauma behaviours every time. Often the parent does not turn up for their visit, which further traumatises the children. This happens nearly every week. In this case, these children live in a state of confusion because their lives are so uncertain. They live in fear of being returned to their parents or constantly disappointed because their parents do not turn up to their contact visits. How many times do we put a child through this before we change the approach? When a child has contact visits it should be a positive experience. We need to secure this outcome for them and find appropriate alternatives when contact simply compounds trauma.
There is much we can do to help preserve the parental child bonds without the child experiencing recurring trauma that often accompanies that bond, whether it is responding to drug use, alcohol, family violence or homelessness, and this is where I reiterate the importance of working with not only the child but the family. There is also much to be said for those programs and organisations who work from a strength-based approach, who not only support the child but help the entire family and empower them to make positive change. I firmly believe these interactions need to be early, intensive and enduring. The crisis point is simply far too late.
I would like to see work with vulnerable and at-risk mothers and their families delivered more intensively as part of a sustained nurse home visiting program, like a super-nanny model who would help parents get the family and home on track and keep it there. My intern, Vera Boylan, did some great work on investigating the feasibility of this model, and I will continue my discussions with the government on these preventative approaches.
This bill is a stepping stone to reducing the number of traumatised children ending up in care, and this government must ensure a therapeutic and holistic approach is embedded across the system.
I have heard positive things about how the therapeutic treatment board has worked through the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005. It has not required many more resources; however, it has implemented the right resources to support decision-making for children with concerning sexual behaviours. The act has worked well for these children, and the board provides the expertise in guiding decision-making.
There have been some concerns raised that the provision in this bill to extend the time frame for reducing emergency care applications will have adverse consequences. I know those who have this view have the best interests of the parents at heart, but I can see the government’s perspective that giving child protection a little more time to prepare, including undertaking proper assessment of placements, will also be beneficial.
We need to think about this through the experience of the child. We often see that by the time children are removed and all that goes with that chaos—and it is chaos—if they go to an emergency respite carer, they might not get there until late; sometimes they have not eaten, have not bathed or have not slept. They have had a terrible day or many terrible days. They get to bed late, and first thing the following day they are picked up by yet another child protection worker to head to court. These children have not had the chance to take a breath, to eat properly, to have some playtime or to have some rest. Is rushing this process really in the best interests of the child? We do need to make sure, however, that if children need to be in emergency care for longer as a result of this change to the act, the care is available for them and the time frames do not drag the timing of a hearing out unnecessarily.
Interim accommodation orders are another change that some stakeholders raised concerns about with us. The change will provide the person they are residing with with more power in urgent situations and the capacity to receive an allowance. I think there could be opportunities to sort out funding issues so that carers can access financial support through ways other than legislation. The Law Institute of Victoria is concerned that the provision will be a disincentive for leaving family violence and perhaps place children at greater risk.
The bill creates family group conferences, which appear to have some positive effects in other jurisdictions, avoiding court proceedings and offering alternative intervention practices. The bill changes the definition of ‘seclusion’ and prohibits the solitary confinement of children. The delegate has the power to seclude children for a maximum of 12 hours. Restriction of children in such a way is definitely an extreme action, and I do not suggest isolation is the appropriate intervention. However, I do not have a great understanding of what the alternative is, and once again I would like to know what supports will be put in place for children and workers when things get so out of hand that seclusion is considered necessary. Seclusion is sometimes also used for the safety of that person and the safety of others, so I will be very interested to ask some of those questions in committee as to what the actual alternative is.
Regarding the Greens’ proposed amendment to raise the age of criminal responsibility, I do not think there is anyone in this place that wants to see young children incarcerated. The ultimate way to achieve this is through intensive early intervention that diverts children away from criminal offending. Children do not just wake up one day, commit serious crime and end up in juvenile justice. There are opportunities for intervention and diversion that are missed along the way. From the very early years there is a gap we need to fill urgently. I have real concerns that raising the age without proper supports in place could see children targeted by criminals who would use them to commit crimes on their behalf—and we are already seeing that; those numbers are increasing.
I will leave my points there in relation to this bill and would like to finish on that early intervention focus—that we will deliver big returns, reducing the number of children entering out-of-home care and improving their lives, the lives of young people. A report released by SVA Consulting which was commissioned by major players in the community service sector provided an economic case for investment in early intervention and recommended five programs to support vulnerable children and families at different points in the system. Turning up the dial in these programs over a 10-year period could remove more than 1200 children from the out-of-home care system every year. It requires big dollars—$150 million every year—but the returns will be delivered downstream through reduced pressure on the justice, health and homelessness systems.
The government has invested in some of these measures—I am very grateful for that—and we are starting to see a greater focus on those therapeutic interventions. I recognise there is not an endless supply of funds, but both our child protection and justice systems need this intensive and sustained funding from end to end if we are to make real inroads into change. I look forward to seeing those reforms unfold and hope they will deliver better outcomes for every vulnerable child. I look forward to participating in committee of the whole, and I thank the government for bringing this bill to the Parliament.
—
Image: Moreton Daily 2017
