‘Roundthe-clock’ response mooted

CHILD Safety is operating on 9am to 5pm office hours while children in residential care roam the streets of the Gold Coast at night, foster carers and MPs say.

The LNP has responded to a Bulletin investigation detailing how a former choir girl was now living on the streets by announcing it would overhaul the department into a 24hour operation if elected to government in October.

Foster carers and parents said children were only required to send a text to officers to assure them of their safety.

A parent wrote on the Facebook page of Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates: “You only need to talk to police to find out that children in care and in resi placements are routinely given the instruction to just check in via text. They live on the streets and our government is paying providers $500,000 per child to do so.”

A former child care worker in another Facebook post said Child Safety Minister Di Farmer was being misled after being advised more checks were undertaken. “CSO (child safety officers) and other agencies request young people to text or call and vice versa to advise they are safe. It’s then noted in case notes. Why does the department continue to mislead the Minister?”

A foster carer with four years’ experience said child care officers faced huge challenges with limited resources.

“The staff changeover is horrendous and CSOs that are any good burn out after about 12 months,” the foster carer said.

Ms Bates promised to meet with a group of 30 carers and said the LNP in government would have “round-the-clock responses”. “… Child Safety shouldn’t and isn’t a 9 to 5 responsibility,” she said.

Ms Bates said the Child Safety Department would be overhauled and renamed the child protection force, operating as a stand-alone agency.

Ms Farmer has said such stories were “heartbreaking and distressing” but she had been “advised by the department it is incorrect to state young people need only to call to be classified as present and safe”.