More than 20 Indigenous, legal and child welfare organisations in NSW have demanded the NSW premier take urgent action on the most recent in a series of damning reviews of the state’s child protection system.
A letter signed by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal organisations is demanding Gladys Berejiklian make “serious, meaningful and genuine change” to implement the recommendations of the Family is Culture review released in November last year.
The review found that child protection workers regularly gave “misleading” evidence to the children’s court, often took the most traumatic option by removing Aboriginal children – including newborns – from their families, and operated in a “closed system” that lacked transparency, had no effective regulator and was run with little or no genuine consultation with the Aboriginal community.
Chaired by UNSW law professor Megan Davis, the study looked at the case files of 1,144 Aboriginal children who entered the NSW out-of-home-care system between 2015 and 2016.
In total, 40% of children in that system are Aboriginal, even though they are only 5% of the state’s juvenile population.
In the worst cases, the review found, “children who did not appear to be at risk of harm were removed from their families”, the children’s court was “misinformed about vitally important information” and, in a deeply concerning finding, in some cases “the location of young people under the care and protection of the minister was unknown”.
The review found “widespread noncompliance” with law and policy by family and community services workers.
In November, the minister for families, communities and disability services, Gareth Ward, said the report’s recommendations would be considered “carefully”. “The department will work through the report and prepare preliminary advice in the first half of 2020.”
But the group’s letter demands “real action, real change” including a “significant commitment in this year’s budget” to urgently address the child protection system’s disproportionate impact on Aboriginal children and families.
“We cannot continue to stand by and witness the NSW government continue to destroy the lives of Aboriginal children, families and communities,” it says. “Based on the current rates of the removal of Aboriginal children from their families, more than 400 Aboriginal children will be removed from their family while we await the government’s response.”
The Family is Culture review made 125 recommendations relating to self-determination, transparency, public accountability and early intervention.
“Aboriginal communities are frustrated by seeing report after report gather dust on department shelves while the outcomes for our kids only get worse,” the chief executive of AbSec, Tim Ireland, said.
|“The time for change is now, and that change must come from Aboriginal people. Megan Davis gave us the roadmap for significant reform that empowers Aboriginal people and communities to change this system for the better.”
In response, the NSW government said it is committed to providing permanency for children in out-of-home care.
“The recommendations of the Family Is Culture report will be considered carefully and in their entirety. The Department of Communities and Justice is preparing preliminary advice in relation to the recommendations, which is expected to be delivered in the first half of 2020,” a spokesman for the NSW families minister Gareth Ward said.
