DOCS fails in its duty of care

ELEANOR HALL: A shocking report has revealed that the agency responsible for protecting children in New South Wales is partly to blame for the death of more than 50 children it knew to be at risk.

The report by the state's ombudsman has found that in the space of just one year, 53 children died in suspicious circumstances of abuse or neglect, despite being amongst the 103 children that staff at the Department of Community Services had been notified about.

In one case, a 3-year-old boy died after his mother left him in the care of two men known to police as sex offenders. Before the toddler died, DOCS had been repeatedly alerted about suspected abuse, as Toni Hassan reports.

TONI HASSAN: The report, highly critical of DOCS, will curl even the most hardened ears.

Ombudsman Bruce Barbour admits he was shocked.

BRUCE BARBOUR: The system isn't working as well as it needs to, and in my view it's unacceptable when matters are being notified to DOCS, that we have poor decision making around who gets help and who doesn't get help.

TONI HASSAN: Among the cases exposing the glaring failures of the New South Wales system involves a 3-year-old boy and his 6-year-old sister, who were left my their mother in a one-bedroom flat with known sex offenders.

The boy was sexually abused, suffered anal and rectal injuries and died a few days later. One of his attackers had attempted to revive him using live electrical wires. One of the paedophiles videotaped himself raping the boy's sister.

The ABC's been told by a source in the Department that the 6-year-old girl is not in foster care, but today is still in the care of her mother, despite the mother's history of poor parenting. DOCS was notified of problems with the family seven times before the 3-year-old died. He was not removed from his mother for longer than one night.

This morning, Community Services Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, was keen to not to blame DOCS staff, but instead called for lessons to be learnt. She stressed that DOCS can only ever be a safety net and that in the end child protection was the responsibility of the whole community.

CARMEL TEBBUTT: Clearly, in individual cases, you'll have judgement calls made that will not necessarily be the right judgement calls. Overall, I think the philosophy of the Department is what we need to do is to get in early, to try and support families before problems become too entrenched, too difficult, but we also need to be able to effectively pick those families that no matter what sort of support you provide, they will not keep their children safe.

And they're the families that we need to be able to better predict, betterÉ and then be able to remove their children and convince the courts that that's the right course of action. And we're doing a lot of work on that front, but I have to say there's no simple, easy answer.

TONI HASSAN: DOCS gets 170,000 notifications of children at risk each year. The ombudsman acknowledges that DOCS cannot investigate every one, but says it can be more working more affectively to discern the cases that are most urgent. Working closer with other child protection agencies would be a good start.

The Minister says Government will take on board the recommendations of the report, the first report such report into reviewable deaths over one year. In this instance, from December 2002 to December 2003.

Carmel Tebbutt says DOCS has a new five-year child protection plan which includes boosting caseworker numbers.

The New South Wales Opposition says it's all spin, and believes the report demonstrates very little has changed in the Department.

Those are the views, also, of a former children's court magistrate, Barbara Holborow.

BARBARA HOLBOROW: And it's all duck-shoving, it really is. They're going to make excuses. It goes without saying there aren't enough DOCS workers. Babies are dying. I get letters from all over New South Wales saying please help us, DOCS won't.

TONI HASSAN: The state's peak children's welfare agency in New South Wales is pleased reforms are underway, but says a lot more needs to be done to speed up results.

The head of the Association of Children's Welfare Agencies is Nigel Spence.

NIGEL SPENCE: There's been a lot of emphasis on mandatory reporting and recognising risk factors for children. And that's been fairly successful, but what hasn't been nearly as successful is ensuring that the follow-through then happens once the child has been identified as having some risk.

So, the great majority of children would be far better, even in struggling family situations, if children can remain at home with their own parents.

At the same time, there are some very, very tough decisions that have to be made, where children are in serious danger and DOCS and other relevant departments have to act swiftly and get the kids out.

ELEANOR HALL: Nigel Spence, Chief Executive of the Association of Children's Welfare Agencies in New South Wales, speaking to Toni Hassan.

By Toni Hassan posted 13 December 04

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Parents face cure for delinquent offspring

There are usually better ways of introducing parents to better Parent Effectiveness Training and not necessarily in an election year or when delinquent offspring have already got into trouble.

Parents of at risk children that now belong to teenage gangs would be required to attend special counselling classes to learn how to manage their delinquent offspring, under a federal Labor plan to reduce the level of street crime.

In an election-year pitch designed to show he will be tough on crime, Mark Latham yesterday promised to introduce parental responsibility contracts if elected, claiming they had reduced by half the level of street crime in Britain.

If the ALP are serious then better parenting skills for all parents is a good idea not just to raise children or to wedge children out of trouble but to form a better understanding about themselves, their partners, family friends and other community members.

During an Australia Day speech, the Opposition leader also flagged plans to rewrite the Citizenship Act in an attempt to give new Australians a better sense of what their rights and responsibilities are.

But what has the Citizenship Act got to do with "respect" for all things in our wonderful Universe? Isn't that what our rights and responsibilities are? To respect all things?

The plan was immediately attacked by, [war criminal], John Howard as "dangerously Orwellian" with the Prime Minister claiming it was impossible to legislate patriotism.

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CIVICS AND CITIZENSHIP

What is Civics and Citizenship Education? Civics and Citizenship Education focuses on What it means to be a citizen of Australia. NOT WHAT IT MEANS TO RESPECT A CITIZEN OF AUSTRALIA. How our system of government works. HERE ARE THE RULES! How Australian democracy evolved, and How to take part in the public affairs of Australia. NOT HOW TO RELATE AND HOW TO RESOLVE CONFLICT. Civics and Citizenship will be the first teaching program for 2003 developed as part of The Australian's resource program for schools. The program provides teachers and students the opportunity to examine and discuss a variety of issues relating to civics and citizenship, including:

But patriotism has nothing to do with raising children to respect others. John Howard's patriotism is more like the US Patriot Act.

`Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001'

Howard went on to say, "If you try and say as a matter of law what people's obligations as a citizen are, you're getting into dangerously regulatory territory."

The debate over citizenship forms part of a wider debate between the two political combatants over what are appropriate national values. The Prime Minister last week provoked a storm of protest after he attacked public schools for being value-neutral and too politically correct.

But John Howard's values are based on lies and the kids know it! It is in front of the children's faces every day this past year or two. As long as you lie you are a citizen. How patriotic is that? Howard's contradictory lesson "bad example to children" you bet! Howard then goes on to say early this year that,

"If you compromise on something that is fundamental you don't win improved behaviour, from people who have misbehaved in the past."

Like weapons of mass distraction John? Bad lesson! Like children overboard John? Bad lesson! But still "Patriotic" that's if you're a "good citizen" John?

Mr Latham, who is trying to forge a new political direction which in part aims to contrast his age difference -- 22 years -- with the Prime Minister, said he was keen to foster a "very active debate" about the rights and responsibilities of those taking out Australian citizenship.

"Rights and responsibilities are at the centre of our citizenship. One of the problems of the current Citizenship Act is that it fails to recognise this reality," he said, during his Australia Day speech. "It lacks a clear statement of purpose and intent."

The Labor plan to make parents more responsible for the actions of troubled children builds on a model embraced by the Gallop Government in Western Australia. Mr Latham also referred to a British model which he said had reduced by 50 per cent the number of offences committed by children.

In what appears a response to the rash of street crime, particularly in the outer suburbs of Sydney and other big cities, Mr Latham said it was incumbent on parents to take greater responsibility for their children.

"For a small number of families, the problem is more severe. Things have got out of hand and the children are out of control," he said.

By Respect 27 Jan 04

THE CHICKEN: Parent Effectiveness Training by Thomas Gordon PHD is a good model for parents to raise their children.

THE EGG: There are up to three generations of Australian parents who cannot pass on social skills to their children, because they don't have these skills to pass on to their children. Perhaps better policy when legislating? More money for education would solve the problem. After all, prevention is better than Mr Latham's cure.

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Respect, you only get out what you have put in. What about Life Skills, Communication and Conflict Resolution. Evolution, perhaps some children and adults miss the whole or part of the course. I did, and so how surprised do you think I was when I realised my parents missed the course as well. Things like Compromise, Win Win, Empathy, and Love. Invisible energy and other skills like public speaking, how to Relate, Assuming, Blaming, Forgiveness, Freedom and Discrimination. This is how I learned respect. If you don't know what it is then how do you relate?

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The study of five-year-olds in Perth has found more than one-quarter could have social, intellectual or behavioural problems in later life.

For what is believed to be the first time in Australia, about 4,500 children were surveyed on social skills, literacy, physical health, maths, bahaviour and communication ability.

Professor Stanley says the figures are frightening because the children surveyed are typical of those in any Australian city.

The Early Development Index is an assessment of social, emotional, intellectual and physical capacities at age five. The study found 26 per cent of the children were vulnerable in at least one area and 13 per cent were considered to be at risk.

Professor Stanley said the community and governments need to act now to prevent a great deal of problems in the future.

"I don't think there is anything more important in Australia at the moment, as I have kept on saying this year," she said.

"These environments that impact on early child development are the things that are driving all these negative outcomes five, 10 and 15 years down the track."

Professor Stanley says it is alarming so many children have been identified as being at serious risk later in life.

"I don't think it is just a parental issue, although there are quite a few things that parents can do," she said.

"It does fall on local governments, on state governments and even on the Federal Government, to look at the kinds of family-enabling policies, family-enabling environments and to give parents support."

She says the findings would be similar anywhere in Australia.

"If you translated this across the country it would probably marry very closely with the kinds of children and the kinds of risk profiles that they had," Professor Stanley said.

"So I don't think this is going to be any different than many of the inner-city populations that you'd see across Australia."

She says many factors are making life difficult for new parents and in turn, their children.

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Respect, you only get out what you have put in. What about Life Skills, Communication and Conflict Resolution. Evolution, perhaps some children and adults miss the whole or part of the course. I did, and so how surprised do you think I was when I realised my parents missed the course as well. Things like Compromise, Win Win, Empathy, and Love. Invisible energy and other skills like public speaking, how to Relate, Assuming, Blaming, Forgiveness, Freedom and Discrimination. This is how I learned respect. If you don't know what it is then how do you relate?

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