Opinion & Commentary
Child protection authorities need to focus on real prevention
While protecting the community from crime should be the State government’s number-one priority, some attempts to curb the crime rate are enough to boil the blood of any law-abiding taxpayer.
The Western Australian department of Child Protection is currently funding a privately-run “rural retreat” program for troubled youth. This program, provided by foster care agency Key Assets, costs an extraordinary $500,000 per child a year. The company defends the cost as much less expensive than incarcerating a youth in a juvenile justice facility. It may cost less, and a bush retreat is better than gaol, certainly for the inmates. But the question is whether the program is value for money.
While the good intention is to rehabilitate troubled youths and prepare them to re-enter society, a softly, softly approach is employed. Participants are allowed plenty of leeway to commit illegal acts in the strange hope this will encourage them to “reform”. We know, for instance, that the social workers at the retreat have allowed one of their charges, a 14 year-old boy, to smoke, despite being under the legal age, and despite counsellors describing him as potentially WA’s most violent offender. Is the cost of illegally supplied cigarettes being borne by WA taxpayers?But an even more important issue is that Key Assets and child protection authorities have touted this initiative as an exercise in protecting vulnerable children, despite the fact the intervention occurs when its already too late.
Spending millions of dollars on children after they are already a threat to society is an exercise in harm minimisation. Pouring money into expensive retreats that attempt, and almost always fail, to reverse the behavioural effects of years of abuse and neglect is not prevention. Unfortunately, by the time a a young teenage enters into such a program the damage has already been done.
A better strategy is to prevent neglectful and abusive parents from damaging children in the first place. Money spent on expensive programs for damaged youths would be more effectively spent on anti-child abuse prevention programs.
In 2003, the Victorian government outsourced the provision of family counselling services to community-based organisations. Since then, reports of child abuse have reduced in Victoria as has government spending on child protection. In comparison, all other states have experienced strong growth on both accounts. Outsourcing these activities has helped constrain growth in government spending on child protection by enabling families to access family counselling earlier.
Yet, most state governments around Australia are failing dismally to provide the families and kids in distress with the support and protection they need. Western Australia is no exception in failing to get the balance right.
Since 2000, West Australian government spending on child protection and out of home care services has more than doubled in real terms from $53million to $120million. Yet over the same period, the number of reports to child protection authorities has tripled from 2,568 to 7,700.
Despite the desperate need for early family support services, greater funding ends up being channelled into teenage-focused out of home care programs like the “rural retreat” program. Government spending on these services has increased more than twofold over the past decade, from $39million in 1998-99 to $89million in 2006-07. Meanwhile spending on family support services has only increased by $300,000, from $1.4 million to $1.7million.
Clearly throwing more cash at the problem of troubled youth is not the solution.
The funding boost for child protection has also been an expensive failure because the majority of families reported to child protection authorities did not require state intervention. Last year only 16% of the reports to child protection authorities involved confirmed cases of abuse or neglect.
While these families have serious problems, they need to be guided to appropriate early intervention services to prevent their family breaking down. The government’s lack of investment in family support services has meant the needs of many vulnerable children have gone unmet.
The vast majority of families reported to West Australian authorities fail to qualify for family support services such as child care, counselling and parenting training. Families that receive no assistance with emerging problems are highly likely to spiral out of control and be re-reported to child protection authorities.
State child protection agencies do operate early-intervention programs. These State-run programs receive the bulk of government funding, even though they are inefficient. Community groups like Barnardos are able to provide a more rapid response and deliver more early-intervention services per dollar of funding they receive. Â
Investing in community-based family support to help families in need before their problems escalate, and outsourcing these programmes to organisations like Mission Australia, is the best design for child protection policies.
Toby O’Brien is a policy analyst at the Centre for Independent Studies.
