Teenagers at risk of homelessness are allowed by Tasmania's child protection service to live in unsafe environments, the state's child sexual abuse commission of inquiry has heard.
Anglicare's Jodie Stokes, who runs the charity's Supported Youth Program for children aged 10-18 who are vulnerable or at risk of homelessness, told the commission she was aware of a case of a 14-year-old girl who chose to live with a 60-year-old man who had exploited her.
"Her [the girl's] reasoning is she was a lot safer than in her home with her parents," Ms Stokes said.
"We can suggest to the child a safe accommodation choice but we can't make them go there because we're voluntary and if they say 'no' we don't have any powers to make them choose that safe choice."
The Communities Department does have the power to remove children, but Ms Stokes said her program often got "push back" from the department's Child Safety Service.
"It's quite frustrating at times when we're told that they're [the child] self-selecting [where to live] because that means the option of residential care or foster care for that child is not an option," Ms Stokes said.
"Children being so young often are not able to make decisions around what is safe or what they deem is safer than what they run away from."
'We have been ignored'
Aboriginal community representatives told the commission they did not feel as though they were listened to by the department when it came to what was best for Aboriginal children.
"We're often not believed about the bad things that are happening in care," Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre chief executive Heather Sculthorpe told the commission.
"I'm not saying this happens all the time, obviously, but we do have occasions where we have really very forcefully put the case to welfare that those children are not safe with those people.
"They are being either neglected or sexually abused and they need to be moved, and we have been ignored and there has been nothing we can do about it."
Ms Sculthorpe said it should be up to Aboriginal people to make decisions about Aboriginal children.
"The safety of children is best guaranteed within their own culture, within their own community, and the success of the community ensures also the success of the children," she said.
Ms Sculthorpe told the commission that once Aboriginal children were in the statutory out-of-home care system and under the guardianship of the state, they were often lost to their community.
The commission heard Aboriginal children were over-represented in out-of-home care in Tasmania, and that of the 439 allegations of sexual abuse in out-of-home care made over the past eight years, 122 related to Aboriginal children.
Ms Sculthorpe also told the commission it was often the families who had previously had children removed who continued to have children removed and who were "singled out" by authorities.
"They have a harder time staying out of state control than other families," she said.
Social worker Jack Davenport, who worked in the Communities Department from 2017-2021, said he had also worked in South Australia where he had Aboriginal colleagues.
"Trusting Aboriginal people I've always found has always led to better outcomes, every time," Mr Davenport said.
He told the commission about cultural problems within the department and the Child Safety Service and said "significant work" needed to be done to address them.
Inconsistency, cultural issues
Mr Davenport told the commission there were inconsistent approaches to the way child safety notifications were acted upon, and judgemental opinions were often aired about families.
"Some of that was inherited … from past workers and just gossip and rumour," he said.
"Even the workers that I felt were quite capable and had a really good skill base were not given the role-modelling to have the confidence to do the things they thought were important."
Another former Communities Department employee, Leanne*, told the commission about two children, Beatrice* and Hank* who were in foster care together.
Leanne told the commission that Beatrice, who was in mid-primary school at the time, was raped by Hank, also a child at the time.
"I have to say this is one of the most frustrating cases I think I've ever had the experience of in my career," Leanne said.
"It was so obvious to me that there had been a serious assault perpetrated by a young boy, and while I wasn't looking to blame or sanction that child, he actually needed intervention to support him to understand that that behaviour was wrong and to set him on a better pathway for the future.
"I was concerned that the department workers used words like the girl fantasising about the sexual activity, that she needed help to address her perpetrative behaviours towards older boys.
"I was concerned about the view that the boy needed to learn how to say no when girls jump on him. There were some value-based issues here that were playing out.
"I was also concerned that department staff were very reluctant to even use proper terminology for what had occurred and in fact, a departmental worker nearly walked out of the case meeting where I said a child had been raped … I recall this intense level of discomfort having this conversation about what might have occurred for Beatrice and Hank."
Both Leanne and Mr Davenport told the commission there was not a culture of critical reflection within the department.
The commission's focus this week is on Tasmania's out-of-home care system.
*Names have been changed
