Ideas@TheCentre
The road to Hawks Nest started back in the Seventies
The establishment of government-run child protection authorities staffed by university-trained social workers in the 1970s led to a series of changes in child protection policy and practice.
The major change is that the traditional role of child protection work (the assessment and forensic investigation of reports concerning children in danger of abuse and neglect) has been crowded out by other forms of social work and community services, especially drug counseling, that focus on working with parents and preserving and reuniting families.
A corresponding shift has seen the core principle of child protection – that the state has a duty to intervene to remove and protect vulnerable children in the child’s best interests – replaced with a new and radical approach to protecting children.
This new prevention focused credo promotes the idea that the best way to protect vulnerable children, including children at serious and imminent risk of harm, is to keep families intact. Family support and other services should be provided to meet parents’ needs and address risk factors such as parental mental health issues and drug abuse.
There is no evidence that this approach is effective. Most studies that have examined child abuse prevention programs have not even measured the impact on child protection reports or the outcomes for at-risk children.
Nevertheless, child removal has been relegated to a last and reluctant resort, and the permanent removal and adoption of vulnerable children is now unacceptable.
One measure of these changes is the tiny number of children adopted from Australian birth parents. Only 70 local adoptions occurred in Australia in 2007–08 (compared to 270 overseas adoptions).
As a result, increasing numbers of children such as ‘Ebony’ are being exposed to greater risk of potentially fatal harm.
The further tragic outcome is that many more disadvantaged children have their development permanently damaged and their educational and life opportunities curtailed.
The standard cycle sees increasing numbers of children churned through the system. These children experience multiple and poor quality out-of-home care placements that frequently break down, interspersed with repeated failed attempts at family reunion.
In many cases, this cycle will almost certainly perpetuate the inter-generational cycle of parental dysfunction, abuse and poverty. Child protection authorities that are increasingly confused about their core responsibility, have turned a blind eye to this cycle and its terrible consequences.
Dr Jeremy Sammut is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. His report ‘Fatally Flawed: The Child Protection Crisis in Australia’ was released by the CIS this week.
