SOCIAL services departments are failing in their duty to care for our most vulnerable children, as shocking new figures show almost one in 10 kids in residential care homes in NSW were sexually abused in a single year.
The horrific statistic follows revelations by The Daily Telegraph last week that 41-year-old Coffs Harbour carer Dennis Kelly was facing charges of raping a 13-year-old girl living at a care home on the NSW north coast. Children living in residential care centres are among the most vulnerable in the community because they are deemed too unstable to be housed with a family.
And although they make up less than five per cent of all out-of-home-care children — the rest live with foster parents or relatives — they account for a third of all claims of sexual abuse against foster children made to the royal commission into child abuse.
Protected to death in 2014 by the NSW Foster Care System
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Category: Child protection statistics
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Created: Friday, 18 November 2016 18:10
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Written by Administrator
Once again the governments own statistics prove children are at a risk of 8.4 times higher of dying when placed into foster care.
In 2014, 79 children died in NSW. 11 of those children were in out of home care. [1] This means that 7 % of the children who died were removed from parents [alive] and were protected to death by the department [FACS].
There were 1,400,000 children under the age of 15 years in NSW in 2014, [2] leaving a total of 1,373,576 children not in OOHC. And of those children, 68 died. There were 26,424 in out of home care NSW in 2014. [3] And of those children [in care] 11 of them died.
This means that:
- The rate of children dying in foster care is 1 child death per 2,402 children.
- And the rate of children dying not in foster care is 1 child death per 20,199 children.
[1] http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2016/s4577393.htm
[2] http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/3235.0Main%20Features152014?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3235.0&issue=2014&num=&view=
[3] https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/child-abuse-and-neglect-statistics