The annual report of the Victorian Child Death Review Committee, examining the deaths of children known to Victoria’s child protection services, was released last week.
While the deaths of children are always tragic, it is good (and surprising, to me) news that the mortality rate for children known to child protection is, apparently, “broadly comparable with the death rate among 0–17 year olds in the general Victorian community.
More than half of the children who died were infants, many of whom died in hospital and had severe disabilities, but two of the deaths that drew the particular attention of the committee (and an Age newspaper report) were of two adolescent girls, one of whom committed suicide, and the other who died from “drug-related causes” (presumably an overdose).
As a result of these two cases, the report made several recommendations. Consistent with the common profile of severely at-risk adolescents, these two young women had suffered severe trauma from maltreatment over many years, and were dealing with that trauma by exposing themselves to further risk. Several recommendations were made about how to better help such young people, including the importance of early intervention, and that such intervention address the underlying trauma in the context of ongoing therapeutic relationships as well as providing short-term crisis management. They also recommend that such young people’s multiple issues – which may include criminal justice issues, substance abuse, and physical and mental health – be considered as a whole, with a plan and care teams formed to ensure that they receive the “sustained and coordinated” help that they need.
It’s easy to imagine why this sometimes doesn’t happen. As the report itself notes, young people with such histories are “hard to help”. Given that many of the human services agencies responsible for helping them specialize in one area or another, it’s possible that they are seen as another agency’s responsibility, and, as such, somebody else’s problem. If better-integrated care teams and better care plans can help to reduce this, it should lead to better outcomes for some of society’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged.
I have lots of youth worker/ social worker friends, many of them have expressed frustration at the silo-ing and resources shifts which occur all over the community services sectors here (SA), which make it difficult for them to smoothly implement wholistic case plans for their clients. In the lead up to end of financial year it gets worse, with many agencies running out of funds and clients having to wait until July to get services. It doesn’t help that many workers in this area are overworked, and on short-term/temporary contracts leading to high staff-turnover. With the current call to cut budgets across the public service and freezes on positions , I am of the opinion that at least in SA vulnerable youth will continue to fall through service cracks.
They are sadly often quite hard to help. Let’s say the problem is drugs, sleeping on the streets, 25 year old boyfriend etc, and the kid actively wants to return to these. A typical child protection order is designed to put obligations on adults, with the implicit sanction that the kids will be supervised, or even removed, if there is no improvement. There is little mechanism for stopping the kid from walking straight out the door, down the road, and back to whatever they were doing. ‘Breaching’ their order is meaningless in such a context.
There’s secure welfare, but that’s a kind of non-punitive incarceration, which obviously from the kid’s point of view is a bit of a contradiction in terms. So it isn’t generally imposed more than 1 to 2 weeks. It’s a chance for psychologists to have a chat with the kids while they cool down. Back wehn I was in the sector it works sometimes, but often it didn’t.
Kids in such situations in their teens are often as worldly and, in some respects, independent as adults. They’re very hard to place in foster homes, and in most cases are disinterested in staying there more than about 5 minutes (I recall occasional major exceptions).
The most effective method is prevention, through massive increases in quality and resources for earlier childhood intervention & support services. While that end of things is certainly a focus in child protection and children’s services, it’s a long way from being fully supported. Cracking down on parenting payment single, or failing to fund adequate kinder or childcare places, or to fix bumhole schools, all have a direct impact on the procession of underclass kids into the child protection/youth justice systems.
I’m not convinced our society, governed by people who’ve chosen to put careers over kids anyway, really gives a toss about kids beyond the usual fist waving when some white van ped gets arrested.
(sorry about the rant)
Is the key to have earlier intervention? How feasible is it to provide effective help by the time it gets to that point?
A friend of mine works for Berry Street (a worthy charity for those who feel like a donation, or would be able to become a foster carer), and deals with problem youths. From her stories, they have their share of successes, but oh so many failures. Never enough staff, because the job is so stressful and poorly paid, and they just seem to be pushing crap uphill all the time. But the institutional system does appear to be getting better.
Thanks Robert, as usual you are doing a better job at keeping up with developments in my former career than i am.
Firstly, Dealing with the multiple issues in a wholeistic manner is what Human Services Case Management is suposed to achieve. that there has to be a reccomendation that it be done so is pretty sad.
Secondly, I wholeheartedly endorse the need for early intervention and any extra allocation of resourses in tha tdirection.
Armargy, i feel like i had a better set of experiences with Secure Welfare than you, often my clients were upset, not so much due to the fact that they had to leave, as that there was so little support when they left. Secure was often seen, in hindsight maybe, as a positive space.