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Lawyers to provide early intervention in care and protection matters

Child in a yellow raincoat, carrying a yellow umbrella walking on a roadFamilies involved in care and protection matters will now be referred to access early legal advice, under a new partnership between the NSW Government and legal agencies aimed at reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care.  

It comes as new laws are expected to come into effect in November that require the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) to take “active efforts” to prevent children from being removed, as well as restore children to their parents or place them with family.  

In response, Legal Aid NSW, the Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS), and DCJ have entered into a partnership that will mobilise solicitors to provide early independent legal advice to support families in the care and protection jurisdiction and avoid unnecessary separation.  

Left hungry and too cold to go to school: Urgent review of children in care

The state government has ordered an immediate review of out-of-home care services for children in NSW following claims that two boys were left hungry and too cold to go to school this year while their care provider sought thousands of dollars a day to look after them.

In a devastating assessment of the sector, a children’s court magistrate has detailed the “unconscionable” treatment, “appalling neglect,” and “failure” in care by providers, including Lifestyle Solutions and the NSW Department of Communities and Justice.

Two young boys, dubbed Finn and Lincoln Hughes, were left too cold and hungry to go to school, a court has heard.Two young boys, dubbed Finn and Lincoln Hughes, were left too cold and hungry to go to school, a court has heard.Credit: Fairfax Media

In granting an application for a clinical report into the wellbeing of the boys, dubbed Finn and Lincoln Hughes by the court, magistrate Tracy Sheedy put on record details of the plight of the children, including:

  • how they complained to their school principal of hunger pains and to their lawyer about not having enough food;
  • how they were too cold to go to school because they did not have a winter uniform;
  • how their care provider quoted $77,000 per month to care for them;
  • and how their psychological welfare was suffering after experiencing a police raid, separation from siblings, and abuse in care since coming to the attention of authorities.

‘Absolutely appalling’: 100 vulnerable children died in NSW last year

Report finds suicide among cohort reached five-year peak while risk of significant harm rose steadily, with Indigenous children over-represented.

About 100 vulnerable children died in New South Wales last year despite being known by the state justice’s system, according to a government report described as “absolutely appalling” by the national children’s commissioner.

Suicide among vulnerable children peaked to its highest level in five years while risk of significant harm reports have steadily increased for a decade, according to the NSW government’s annual report into child deaths.

Just over one in five of the 100 deaths were Indigenous.

It was the highest number of deaths found since 2011 and the third year in a row the case numbers had increased.

NSW Labor said the most vulnerable children in the state were being left behind and needed “urgent” state government support.

“Year after year the … government delivers platitudes instead of funding,” Labor’s spokesperson for family and community services, Kate Washington, said.

NSW child-protection workers 'regularly' mislead court and needlessly take Indigenous kids: report

A damning review of Facs’ approach to Aboriginal families finds urgent reform is needed.

New South Wales child protection workers regularly give “misleading” evidence to the children’s court, often take the most traumatic option by removing Aboriginal children – including newborns – from their families, and operate in a “closed system” that needs urgent reform to make it more transparent and child-friendly, according to a new report.

The Family is Culture review released this week is a three-year study of the case files of 1,144 Aboriginal children who entered the NSW out-of-home-care system between 2015 and 2016.

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”.

A child
Child protection: governments found to be spending $500m a year without any real gains.

Former Community Services worker sued for failing to protect sisters from sexually abusive stepfather

After suffering years of sexual abuse at the hands of their stepfather, two sisters are suing a former community services case worker and the NSW Government for failing to protect them.  The women, known as TB and DC, say that despite knowing about the abuse and documenting their complaints, both the department and the former officer did not report it to the police.

Lawyers for the pair say it is the first time a Department of Community Services (DOCS) worker has been personally sued for not protecting children at risk. The former worker, Carolyn Quinn, is now a high-profile child protection consultant and was appointed by the minister to the NSW Carers Advisory Council.

The abuse of the two girls began in the 1970s when they were five and eight.  Their stepfather repeatedly raped and indecently assaulted them. He took sexually explicit photographs of the pair and regularly beat and threatened them.  The court heard that their stepfather would beat the girls with a leather strap, threaten them with a knife and handcuff them. 

In early 1983, one of the sisters phoned the then-Department of Youth and Community Services (now DOCS) to report the abuse.  Ms Quinn interviewed the girl and prepared a report detailing their story.

Sisters abused by Stepfather awarded $1.5m

crime-sceneTwo sisters who sued the state of New South Wales for failing to protect them from their abusive stepfather have been awarded almost $1.5 million in damages after an eight-year battle for compensation.

The women, known as TB and DC, were repeatedly raped and indecently assaulted by their stepfather when they were children in the 1970s and 1980s.

The payout marks the end of a long legal battle for the sisters, which began in 2008 when they sued the state and their former community services case worker for negligence in the NSW Supreme Court.

They claimed that despite knowing about the abuse and documenting their complaints, both the Department of Community Services (DOCS) and the officer did not report it to the police. They alleged that had the abuse been reported, they would have been protected from further abuse.

The former case worker, Carolyn Quinn, is now a high-profile child protection consultant and a former member of the NSW Carers Advisory Council.

Last year, the sisters lost their initial claim, with Justice D ruling that while the department had failed in its duty of care to report the abuse, he did not accept that the abuse continued after DOCS was first notified in 1983.

Justice Campbell ruled Ms Quinn did not owe the girls a duty of care and even if she had, she had fulfilled that duty by reporting the abuse to her superiors.

Secret files show DoCS visits to at-risk kids have decreased

THE number of beaten, sexually assaulted or at-risk children receiving intervention from Community Service caseworkers has dropped dramatically in the past year, official figures show.

A Community Services report stamped "Confidential - not for further distribution", leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, reveals the number of children at serious risk of harm who were visited by a caseworker dropped by 13 per cent in 2010.

It comes as a senior bureaucrat has authored a separate internal report which states caseworkers are not visiting children at risk of serious harm because of red tape and a fear of being blamed if the child is murdered.

Foster carer charged with assaulting kids

 A northern NSW foster carer has been charged with indecently assaulting three children in his care. A 77-YEAR-OLD foster carer on the NSW north coast has been arrested and charged with indecently assaulting three children in his care.

The man was arrested at his home in Lennox Head on Wednesday and is accused of indecently assaulting three children previously in his care between 2009 and 2011.

Foster carer arrested and charged for physically abusing children - near Newcastle

Child Abuse Squad detectives have arrested and charged a woman for physically assaulting three children in her care.

Last Friday (10 January 2014), police were informed that three children housed in foster care in the Lake Macquarie area were suffering from a number of physical injuries.

The children – two boys, aged 6 and 7, and a girl aged 5 – had obvious bruising on various parts of their bodies.

Woman jailed for brutally assaulting foster child after appearing in Parkes District Court

A 31-year-old Parkes woman was sentenced to seven years’ jail today in Parkes District Court after assaulting a five-year-old foster child in her care.

Brooke Roberts of Middleton Street, appeared before Judge Stephen Hanley on the charge of reckless grievous bodily harm, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of ten years.

Hunter New England FACS office fails to meet Children's Guardian accreditation standards for out of home care

Six months: Hunter New England FACS office has an extended deadline to meet Children's Guardian accreditation standards or it will be stripped of its authority to oversee children in out of home care.

Six months: Hunter New England FACS office has an extended deadline to meet Children's Guardian accreditation standards or it will be stripped of its authority to oversee children in out of home care.THE Hunter’s Family and Community Services (FACS) office could be stripped of its authority to oversee out of home care for at-risk children after failing to meet accreditation requirements.

The Hunter New England FACS district has been given a “six month lifeline” to meet the Office of Children’s Guardian standards or have its accreditation withdrawn.

More foster children adopted after government reforms, Pru Goward says

For Meredith and Elliott Gordon, life has dramatically changed since welcoming their daughter, Kathleen, into the family.

The West Ryde couple first met their daughter when she was eight months old and came into their care as a foster child.

Last November, after caring for her for two years, they adopted Kathleen – a process that would have taken longer if it was not for reforms the NSW government introduced last year to encourage foster parents to adopt the children in their care.