The subject of the Australia’s child protection system has been in the media spotlight this week following ‘Broken Homes’, a very concerning investigation by Four Corners into residential care, and the report by the Feed SBS on the complexity of Australia’s foster care system. Despite 42 inquiries since 1997 and the transfer residential care to the private sector, children and young people are left abused, neglected and vulnerable by a system that is supposed to protect them.
Systemic reform is underway, evidenced by the number of Inquiries across the nation. CREATE CEO, Ms Jacqui Reed states that a new approach is needed to enable positive improvement in child protection.
“Today there are eight separate Inquiries underway across our nation,” said Ms Reed. “There is no shortage of common will or evidence to support where the funds and resources need to be directed to radically improve the child protection sector.”
The children in care today are our future and although it is encouraging to see a national approach somewhat in the redress scheme, CREATE asserts it is the time to overhaul the old approach and lead from the front with commonwealth support. CREATE calls on all levels of government (and our NGO sector) to improve residential care models and placement options for children and young people that align with the National Standards for Out-of-Home Care.
“Child protection is everybody’s business,” said Ms Jacqui Reed, CREATE’s Chief Executive “The public must demand a better system to protect and care for vulnerable children and young people.”
Here are the CREATE media highlights from the week:
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| CREATE Young Consultant Terry as interviewed by the Feed SBS on their segement, ‘Caring on the brink’: “In the future, I want to be a youth worker. That’s what I want to do and I want to be that Youth Worker that I never had. I think its because of who I am. I pushed all of the negative stuff into the back of my mind and I remember the positive things” | CREATE CEO, Jacqui Reed as interviewed on ABC News NSW on Tuesday 16 November in response to the ‘Broken Homes’ investigation, comments: “We’re not investing in families to stop the kids coming into care and how dare we bring them into care and not offer them something better. We absolutely must take this on board and start looking at early intervention and pouring our resources into that area.” |
To find out more about the media segments please follow the following links:
To watch the Four Corners Special on ‘Broken Homes’ please click here or to read the article as published on the ABC website following the program click here.
To watch the Feed on SBS segment ‘Caring on the brink: Australia’s struggling foster care system‘ please click here.
To read the CREATE media releases please follow the links:
15 November 2016 – Call for Commonwealth Leadership of Care
15 November 2016 – Commonwealth Leadership to Oversight in Child Protection
8 November 2016 – CREATE Response to Commonwealth Redress Announcement
