CREATE's advocacy in the QLD Child Safety Inquiry
CREATE Foundation is calling for children and young people with lived experience to be front and centre in Queensland’s Child Safety Commission of Inquiry. The 12,700 children currently in care and those before them know best what it is like to grow up in care in Queensland and what needs to change.
Through submissions to the Inquiry as well as social media and media engagement, CREATE is supporting lived experience experts to be heard in the Inquiry.
Advocacy priorities
CREATE has established the following advocacy priorities for the QLD Inquiry
Reduce reliance on residential care
As long as kids are living in residential care, make it safer, use therapeutic and relational models, and address workforce issues.
Reduce the number of children entering care and staying in care
Do this by investing in early intervention and family preservation; addressing the social drivers of risk and address the needs of families before they escalate and making kids safe by preventing and targeting family violence.
Take meaningful steps towards Aboriginal self-determination
And closing the gap in over-representation through First Nations-led approaches to raising First Nations kids.
Stop criminalising children
Don’t lock them up. It’s not safe, it harms children and it sets them up for cycles of trauma and re-offending.
Share your experiences with the Inquiry
If you want to share your story and information with the Commission, you can do this in a few different ways as outlined on the Child Safety Inquiry website.
Ways include:
- Online survey
- Letter by mail
- Message on social media
- Voice note or audio message
- Video recording
- An artwork, picture or photo
- A full submission using the online form
CREATE in the media
CREATE Young Consultants and our CEO speak to the media
11 September 2025 - Shocking truth about Qld kids in state care revealed in inquiry submission
16 July 2025 - Child safety system in spotlight ahead of Inquiry
8 July 2025 - Listen to the children, CREATE's CEO tells Inquiry
Media releases
10 September 2025 - Young people in care fear backlash for speaking up: CREATE Foundation brings their concerns to the Child Safety Commission of Inquiry
1 July 2025 - Lived experience must lead
19 May 2025 - CREATE welcomes Inquiry
CREATE Submissions
Read our Submissions to the Inquiry, sharing young people's voices
Young people speaking up
Watch videos of CREATE Young Consultants speaking up and encouraging others to use their voices
Part 1 - #OurVoiceInTheInquiry
Part 2 - #OurVoiceInTheInquiry
How to make a submission w/ Nellie
Are you under 25 and have grown up in care in QLD?
Get involved in the Inquiry through CREATE Foundation
Participating through CREATE could look like:
- coming together at YAGs to talk about your experience — Insights from YAGs inform our submissions to the Inquiry
- being in a video for CREATE’s social media
- or speaking to the media about your experiences.
If you would like to share your experience as part of the Inquiry, express your interest through the form below and CREATE will contact you as opportunities come up.
