Abused kids ‘can be moved to worse places’

OFFICERS with the Department of Child Safety are struggling to find homes for neglected and abused children who sometimes end up in environments “worse than where they had come from” because of a desperate lack of foster carers.

Children are being forced to sleep in police stations and departmental offices because there’s nowhere to send them, while the government is ignoring its own guidelines and placing hundreds of young children in “unsuitable” residential care homes.

The shock findings are contained in an Auditor-General’s report that again exposes a Child Safety system struggling to look after Queensland’s most vulnerable children.

The report finds that children are moving between homes up to 30 times because authorities can’t find permanent placings, as foster carers complain of arduous rules.

And despite the government maintaining that residential care facilities are primarily for young people aged 12-17 with complex and extreme support needs, almost a third of children placed there are younger than 12.

The report finds that many shift workers there don’t have appropriate qualifications, training and experience and that Child Safety workers were concerned that “children were placed into environments that were unsuitable and sometimes worse than where they had come from”.

It says placing children in inappropriate care could damage their schooling, employment, social, behavioural and emotional outcomes.

Children’s complex behaviour, the cost of caring, increasing numbers of families with two working parents and “arduous” requirements put on carers are all reasons there are fewer foster carers, the report says.

“For example, it requires some home-based carers to seek permission before taking a child on a family holiday or going to the hairdresser,” the report says.

“These requirements impact on the willingness of people to become foster carers and the ability for children to integrate into a stable family environment.”

Child Safety Minister Di Farmer welcomed the audit and accepted all nine recommendations for improvement.

Pictures: BRENDAN RADKE HAPPY: Madison Dermatossian, 7, Lucas Dermatossian, 3, and Mitani Ghattas, 7, play an interactive game in the children’s zone at the new Cairns Airport domestic terminal.