government
Agencies' neglect fatal for Ebony
07/10/2009 23:57
There are a few circumstances in life where one mistake can be fatal. But in most cases, adults are usually involved. Adults choose to put themselves at risk.
Small children don’t choose to put themselves at risk.
Not in relation to the fundamentals – like love, family, care, learning. They rely on adults to protect them. They rely first on their parents. And our child protection system is set up to monitor, and manage, when parents fail. We expect it to work. But if the parents fail, and then the system fails, a child can die.
So what an absolute tragedy to read about a child in New South Wales who starved to death while in the care of her parents. No child should go through what Ebony went through. If ‘the system’ is the last line of defence, then it’s a huge responsibility for the people who work in ‘the system’.
We know when software fails. We know when a company fails. We know when some appliance fails. Do we know when a parent fails? You don’t just get a blue computer screen. In many cases it is not just one event that makes it obvious you have a #parentfail.
But when the risk of not acting is a child’s life, you may ask why on earth someone didn’t do something?
One of the newspaper reports stated that DoCs had ‘failed to convince the Children's Court to remove Ebony and her two older sisters from their parents, despite the fact Ebony's younger sister had been removed’. So the ‘system’ had a ‘fail’ at what appears in hindsight to have been the right course of action? Why?
The Ombudsman concluded that Ebony’s case "illustrates very clearly what can go wrong for children when agencies fail to work effectively, fail to work together and fail to take shared responsibility for the care and protection of children".
No kidding.
Small children don’t choose to put themselves at risk.
Not in relation to the fundamentals – like love, family, care, learning. They rely on adults to protect them. They rely first on their parents. And our child protection system is set up to monitor, and manage, when parents fail. We expect it to work. But if the parents fail, and then the system fails, a child can die.
So what an absolute tragedy to read about a child in New South Wales who starved to death while in the care of her parents. No child should go through what Ebony went through. If ‘the system’ is the last line of defence, then it’s a huge responsibility for the people who work in ‘the system’.
We know when software fails. We know when a company fails. We know when some appliance fails. Do we know when a parent fails? You don’t just get a blue computer screen. In many cases it is not just one event that makes it obvious you have a #parentfail.
But when the risk of not acting is a child’s life, you may ask why on earth someone didn’t do something?
- Is it because the online forums are full of condemnation at the apparent ease with which we remove children from biological parents who don’t care properly for them?
- Is it because we hear from children who have been in care that they have never managed to deal with, or been given the support to cope with, being removed from their birth parents?
- Is it because psychologists have studies that tell us that even a poor biological family is better than removing a child from them?
- Is it because the ideology favours family support and keeping a family together, no matter what?
- Is it because none of the ‘systems’ or agencies that look out for a child in NSW are linked?
- Is it because no one is able to see the complete picture?
- Is it because worker turnover meant there was never one worker with the family history?
- Is it because the processes in the main organisation charged with the responsibilities for children at risk simply don’t work?
One of the newspaper reports stated that DoCs had ‘failed to convince the Children's Court to remove Ebony and her two older sisters from their parents, despite the fact Ebony's younger sister had been removed’. So the ‘system’ had a ‘fail’ at what appears in hindsight to have been the right course of action? Why?
The Ombudsman concluded that Ebony’s case "illustrates very clearly what can go wrong for children when agencies fail to work effectively, fail to work together and fail to take shared responsibility for the care and protection of children".
No kidding.
- Agencies failing to work effectively means process improvement is required.
- Agencies failing to work together means no links (technical or personal), no reason to share and no habit of collaboration. Links need to be built and people need to be trained in collaborating. Having worked with social workers who didn’t even like collaborating with us, we suspect there’s a cultural issue to address in some sectors as well.
- Shared responsibility? That means all of us. Courts, system and community. This isn’t just a DoCS problem.
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'Shattered father failed by DoCS system'
17/06/2009 22:30
OK, we’d like to warn anyone who has been more than an occasional reader of this blog to hold on. Because we are about to stand up for DoCS. Bet you never saw that coming, heh?
We regularly hold social work agencies and workers up to scrutiny for poor policy, poor performance, and poor people management. But we try to balance our rants with some constructive suggestions about what the preferred approach should be. And as we are foster parents in the system, we are actively putting our money where our mouth is. We’ve earned our right to have a say and it is an informed one. Right?
So we’ve been watching this week’s vitriol from the great uninformed about DoCS’ performance in relation to the 12 year old mum to be. If you follow us on Twitter (@fostercarer) then you’ll have seen some tweets (and if you don’t follow us on Twitter, give it a go. Pithy is good and we are at our pithiest there…)
Here’s the most recent, in depth (and we use that term loosely) article on the subject from The Daily Telegraph. It’s titled Shattered father failed by rotten DoCS system. That’s an award winning headline.
All fingers, including those of anyone who can type a comment on a news website, are pointing to DoCS as having failed the expectant child. Despite an order awarding custody to the mother, who was clearly not fit to care for the child or provide a safe home (so who made THAT decision?), when the non-custodial father raised his concerns to DoCS about the child’s welfare, they didn’t remove the child.
In work and life we believe you should cop it on the chin when you deserve it. But our sense of fairness is feeling a bit confronted.
Even Community Services Minister Linda Burney seems to have waved goodbye to the horse as it bolted past her out the gate, and has given up trying to provide any cogent explanation as to what really happened in DoCS when one of these cases hits the headlines.
So we applauded just a bit when we saw this piece from Tory Maguire on The Punch, entitled Blaming Government for rotten parents.
She writes: ‘Blaming the authorities has become the default position for so many people who don’t think the ultimate responsibility for the care of children lies with their parents.’
Spot on. We’re not sure who appointed DoCS as the only defence for children in this state, but they seem to be expected to pick up the pieces when it all goes pear-shaped no matter what the previous circumstances. If they were resourced, and structured to do just that, then we’d be leading the calls for accountability. The problem with all this is that slowly, relentlessly, we are accepting the idea that DoCS is ultimately and finally responsible. Not the parents. Not the community. Not the police or the legal system. Not the other support systems like schools and the medical profession.
Maguire points out that ‘there were children in greater danger than this little girl’ that took the available resources.
Do you know, at some point that could have been our foster child? We have a child in care because the decision was made that her birth family couldn’t care for her properly. She was at serious risk of immediate harm and enduring hardship, and a worker mobilised the system to remove her and initiated the decision to keep her safe. Her case was, in an over-taxed system, given priority.
So here’s a quiet round of applause for all the dedicated DoCS workers who make the right decisions. Credit where credit is due. It’s a shame that the positive stories don’t sell newspapers, isn’t it.
We regularly hold social work agencies and workers up to scrutiny for poor policy, poor performance, and poor people management. But we try to balance our rants with some constructive suggestions about what the preferred approach should be. And as we are foster parents in the system, we are actively putting our money where our mouth is. We’ve earned our right to have a say and it is an informed one. Right?
So we’ve been watching this week’s vitriol from the great uninformed about DoCS’ performance in relation to the 12 year old mum to be. If you follow us on Twitter (@fostercarer) then you’ll have seen some tweets (and if you don’t follow us on Twitter, give it a go. Pithy is good and we are at our pithiest there…)
Here’s the most recent, in depth (and we use that term loosely) article on the subject from The Daily Telegraph. It’s titled Shattered father failed by rotten DoCS system. That’s an award winning headline.
All fingers, including those of anyone who can type a comment on a news website, are pointing to DoCS as having failed the expectant child. Despite an order awarding custody to the mother, who was clearly not fit to care for the child or provide a safe home (so who made THAT decision?), when the non-custodial father raised his concerns to DoCS about the child’s welfare, they didn’t remove the child.
In work and life we believe you should cop it on the chin when you deserve it. But our sense of fairness is feeling a bit confronted.
Even Community Services Minister Linda Burney seems to have waved goodbye to the horse as it bolted past her out the gate, and has given up trying to provide any cogent explanation as to what really happened in DoCS when one of these cases hits the headlines.
So we applauded just a bit when we saw this piece from Tory Maguire on The Punch, entitled Blaming Government for rotten parents.
She writes: ‘Blaming the authorities has become the default position for so many people who don’t think the ultimate responsibility for the care of children lies with their parents.’
Spot on. We’re not sure who appointed DoCS as the only defence for children in this state, but they seem to be expected to pick up the pieces when it all goes pear-shaped no matter what the previous circumstances. If they were resourced, and structured to do just that, then we’d be leading the calls for accountability. The problem with all this is that slowly, relentlessly, we are accepting the idea that DoCS is ultimately and finally responsible. Not the parents. Not the community. Not the police or the legal system. Not the other support systems like schools and the medical profession.
Maguire points out that ‘there were children in greater danger than this little girl’ that took the available resources.
Do you know, at some point that could have been our foster child? We have a child in care because the decision was made that her birth family couldn’t care for her properly. She was at serious risk of immediate harm and enduring hardship, and a worker mobilised the system to remove her and initiated the decision to keep her safe. Her case was, in an over-taxed system, given priority.
So here’s a quiet round of applause for all the dedicated DoCS workers who make the right decisions. Credit where credit is due. It’s a shame that the positive stories don’t sell newspapers, isn’t it.
Children in care need a pushy parent
13/05/2009 06:41
‘England's care system needs a radical overhaul with the state acting as a "pushy parent" to get the very best for the children in its charge, MPs say.’
We understand the sentiment behind this call in the UK, reported on the BBC in April. Someone needs to – let’s say it like it is – fight for these children, or never give up, just like a parent who loves them dearly.
So in theory, OK. At a system level, the state should put in place the best care for these children, and use its considerable muscle to make sure that level of care is provided.
But the state – a collective, anonymous, corporate entity – cannot replicate a parent’s care. Individual workers of real empathy and talent may bond with and counsel children in care. But let’s hope the MPs haven’t gotten carried away.
‘A report by the Commons' Children, Schools and Families Committee says the state fails as a "parent" because it does not demand enough from services.’
Good luck to them. We hope the ‘services’ are up to it. As foster parents, we demanded more from our private agency. Like a seat at the table in decisions about Happy Camper, and an evaluation of whether their ‘one size fitted all’ policy really applied to our Camper. They didn’t like that. Junior manager, senior manager, and agency head honcho. They lined up one after the other like dominoes, to tell us that we were ‘just the carers’ and their policy won. We didn’t accept that and transferred to another agency.
‘We welcome the government's assertion that it should become exceptional for a young person to leave care before they turn 18, and hope that it will precipitate a culture change in local authorities.’
Well, yeah. Don’t you love how the most obvious principles are restated as if they are the Eleventh Commandment? But think about what the system teaches many of these children, by bouncing them from home to home to home through their childhood. By moving these children so many times, we are actively teaching them that attachment is transient, that they will survive moving homes, and that they really shouldn’t learn to care about a family. And we’re surprised when they leave?
‘(entering the care system) must be seen as a positive experience, but this will only happen if the state can better replicate the warm, secure care of good parents for every child in the system.’
We have a child in care, who has been with us longer than with anyone else. The system made a call when she was quite tiny. It recognized that she needed the warm, secure care of good parents. And so the love, warmth and security has overwhelmed any conscious memories of the earlier unsettled times. This is now her ‘real’ life. Importantly, her reality is stability, attachment, trust, and expectation.
‘For some children care should be seen as "the best available option rather than a last resort", they said.’
Care will be the best available option for children when it is permanent. Stable. And enduring. So maybe we need to have the courage to make a decision for the child’s sake early on. Does the birth parent have a perpetual right to try and get their child back, no matter what? Too often care becomes the last resort when a rehabilitation plan fails. Or too much of the plan with birth parent is visible to the child, before there are any indications it will be successful. And the person who suffers long term damage is the child.
‘…concern for the happiness and welfare of the 60,000 children in care should be at the heart of the system.’
Everyone says this. ‘It’s all for the children’ you hear. Sometimes it can be so piously quoted to justify a viewpoint you feel like shouting. But try to break this principle down to reasonable, sensible decisions that put the child first, and too often policy, process and research get in the way.
We understand the sentiment behind this call in the UK, reported on the BBC in April. Someone needs to – let’s say it like it is – fight for these children, or never give up, just like a parent who loves them dearly.
So in theory, OK. At a system level, the state should put in place the best care for these children, and use its considerable muscle to make sure that level of care is provided.
But the state – a collective, anonymous, corporate entity – cannot replicate a parent’s care. Individual workers of real empathy and talent may bond with and counsel children in care. But let’s hope the MPs haven’t gotten carried away.
‘A report by the Commons' Children, Schools and Families Committee says the state fails as a "parent" because it does not demand enough from services.’
Good luck to them. We hope the ‘services’ are up to it. As foster parents, we demanded more from our private agency. Like a seat at the table in decisions about Happy Camper, and an evaluation of whether their ‘one size fitted all’ policy really applied to our Camper. They didn’t like that. Junior manager, senior manager, and agency head honcho. They lined up one after the other like dominoes, to tell us that we were ‘just the carers’ and their policy won. We didn’t accept that and transferred to another agency.
‘We welcome the government's assertion that it should become exceptional for a young person to leave care before they turn 18, and hope that it will precipitate a culture change in local authorities.’
Well, yeah. Don’t you love how the most obvious principles are restated as if they are the Eleventh Commandment? But think about what the system teaches many of these children, by bouncing them from home to home to home through their childhood. By moving these children so many times, we are actively teaching them that attachment is transient, that they will survive moving homes, and that they really shouldn’t learn to care about a family. And we’re surprised when they leave?
‘(entering the care system) must be seen as a positive experience, but this will only happen if the state can better replicate the warm, secure care of good parents for every child in the system.’
We have a child in care, who has been with us longer than with anyone else. The system made a call when she was quite tiny. It recognized that she needed the warm, secure care of good parents. And so the love, warmth and security has overwhelmed any conscious memories of the earlier unsettled times. This is now her ‘real’ life. Importantly, her reality is stability, attachment, trust, and expectation.
‘For some children care should be seen as "the best available option rather than a last resort", they said.’
Care will be the best available option for children when it is permanent. Stable. And enduring. So maybe we need to have the courage to make a decision for the child’s sake early on. Does the birth parent have a perpetual right to try and get their child back, no matter what? Too often care becomes the last resort when a rehabilitation plan fails. Or too much of the plan with birth parent is visible to the child, before there are any indications it will be successful. And the person who suffers long term damage is the child.
‘…concern for the happiness and welfare of the 60,000 children in care should be at the heart of the system.’
Everyone says this. ‘It’s all for the children’ you hear. Sometimes it can be so piously quoted to justify a viewpoint you feel like shouting. But try to break this principle down to reasonable, sensible decisions that put the child first, and too often policy, process and research get in the way.
Reporting more detail on children in care?
28/04/2009 17:20
This came from Caroline Overington (#overingtonc) via Twitter. The full article is called The girl in the window, and recounts, in quite astonishing detail, the story of a 9 year old Florida girl.
She was so neglected and abused in her birth family that she now suffers developmental delay of the most extreme, fundamental kind. She has been adopted by a family who are trying to mend what they can. The article discloses a great deal of personal information about the child and her birth family, and a lot of detail on what the child experienced.
It should be compulsory reading for anyone who thinks they have an informed opinion on children’s services.
So, why can’t Overington and other responsible journos report this type of story, at this level of detail, in Australia?
Should we be able to report this type of story at this level of detail?
How can you work to a solution when no one is able to openly discuss the problem?
Can you educate all the people involved when the facts remain hidden?
Can you bring struggling parents to some degree of self-awareness if they never hear other stories they might identify with?
Can you report at this level of detail and still protect people’s privacy, particularly the children’s?
Perhaps it is time for a new approach.
Just today it was reported that ’Australian health and welfare agencies … formed a taskforce to combat increasing numbers of child abuse and neglect, which reached 55,000 cases last year’.
With notifications for alleged child abuse and neglect almost tripling in Australia between 1999 and 2007, the problem isn’t being solved by existing methods.
So maybe the time has come to give some committed, experienced, responsible journos the green light to start reporting.
Is it too easy to consider it ‘someone else’s problem’ if we don’t get too close to it?
At what age can a child make his/her own decision?
06/04/2009 21:47
A decision about what? Before we launch off, let’s refine that question a bit.
There’s been a lot in the news lately regarding children trying to juggle the needs of both parents after a marriage breakdown. Yes, you heard right – the children often do the juggling – emotions, loyalty, sheer tiredness, change of homes. Unfortunately the decision often seems to pay little regard to what the children want. ‘But they are children’, you say? ‘They are too young to know what’s best for them’.
As a foster parent your child may well be juggling contact with a birth family and life with you. Depending on their age and the circumstances you may also find loyalty issues, emotions and stress come from that contact.
So at what age is a child able to offer a valid viewpoint on their contact with a non-custodial parent?
Is it 12 (mentioned in the Adoption Act) or younger? Dare we ask whether younger children, in certain circumstances, actually know what they need?
Our role, as second parents who love the child, is to prepare Happy Camper for life. That means teaching her to have an opinion. And it means teaching her to express that opinion. Given her circumstances and the players in her life, the sooner she learns that skill the better.
And there are good things that flow from that. We are teaching her to talk about things, and not bottle it up. We are teaching her to articulate how she feels and explore her reactions. We are helping her work through how she feels and how to manage. We are teaching her to accept her circumstances as part of life and get it in perspective. And most importantly, we are showing her what control looks like. Hers, actually.
Having an opinion is a fundamental first step to making a decision. Creating and forming opinions, and the two way interaction that usually follows, teaches a child what a good decision looks like.
The importance of this became clear to us when we had a worker who ‘ran’ access. We have no doubts that came about because the agency had an agenda to restore the child to birth parent, combined with a ferocious ‘tick-the-box’ approach. The agency paid lip-service to ‘we are a team and we want your contribution’ but that was a crock. Not only did the relentlessly artificial management of the visit unsettle the Camper mightily, it created a false expectation in the birth family about prospects in the future. The Camper’s view on access, and ours as her foster parents, was simply irrelevant to the agency.
So now the Camper gets a say. She doesn’t make important decisions about her life, and neither does she want to, but she’s learning how it all works. And we are teaching her how to express that opinion to us, to workers, and eventually, to members of her birth family. They will have a better relationship for it.
We think that the adults in ‘the system’, from workers to the judiciary, need to listen a lot more carefully to the small people.
There’s been a lot in the news lately regarding children trying to juggle the needs of both parents after a marriage breakdown. Yes, you heard right – the children often do the juggling – emotions, loyalty, sheer tiredness, change of homes. Unfortunately the decision often seems to pay little regard to what the children want. ‘But they are children’, you say? ‘They are too young to know what’s best for them’.
As a foster parent your child may well be juggling contact with a birth family and life with you. Depending on their age and the circumstances you may also find loyalty issues, emotions and stress come from that contact.
So at what age is a child able to offer a valid viewpoint on their contact with a non-custodial parent?
Is it 12 (mentioned in the Adoption Act) or younger? Dare we ask whether younger children, in certain circumstances, actually know what they need?
Our role, as second parents who love the child, is to prepare Happy Camper for life. That means teaching her to have an opinion. And it means teaching her to express that opinion. Given her circumstances and the players in her life, the sooner she learns that skill the better.
And there are good things that flow from that. We are teaching her to talk about things, and not bottle it up. We are teaching her to articulate how she feels and explore her reactions. We are helping her work through how she feels and how to manage. We are teaching her to accept her circumstances as part of life and get it in perspective. And most importantly, we are showing her what control looks like. Hers, actually.
Having an opinion is a fundamental first step to making a decision. Creating and forming opinions, and the two way interaction that usually follows, teaches a child what a good decision looks like.
The importance of this became clear to us when we had a worker who ‘ran’ access. We have no doubts that came about because the agency had an agenda to restore the child to birth parent, combined with a ferocious ‘tick-the-box’ approach. The agency paid lip-service to ‘we are a team and we want your contribution’ but that was a crock. Not only did the relentlessly artificial management of the visit unsettle the Camper mightily, it created a false expectation in the birth family about prospects in the future. The Camper’s view on access, and ours as her foster parents, was simply irrelevant to the agency.
So now the Camper gets a say. She doesn’t make important decisions about her life, and neither does she want to, but she’s learning how it all works. And we are teaching her how to express that opinion to us, to workers, and eventually, to members of her birth family. They will have a better relationship for it.
We think that the adults in ‘the system’, from workers to the judiciary, need to listen a lot more carefully to the small people.
US laws ban single foster carers
22/03/2009 21:55
We’ve had debates about obese people fostering, and now a number of US states have passed laws that will, among other things, prevent single carers from fostering.
It seems inconceivable that policy-makers would try to limit who can apply, when the most important thing should be finding these children someone to love them.
What’s behind it? The conservative movement considers that the appropriate family is a mum, a dad and the kids.
Well, that’s great. In a perfect world. But most children entering care left a perfect world far behind them, if in fact they ever knew it. Many of them have never experienced the glorious ‘nuclear family’. They wouldn’t know it if they tripped over it. So why should it be the only type of care available?
Maybe, just maybe, the best care for many of these children might be finding one person who loves them. Just one. Who really loves them. And cares about them. Perhaps that’s all it takes?
The authorities have an obligation to seek out the best for these children once they enter care. But that doesn’t mean the nuclear family is essential in all instances. And it doesn’t mean the nuclear family is possible in all circumstances.
Should these children be denied a home where one parent who loves and nurtures them might be more than they have ever had before?
We know many single carers, both foster parents and birth parents. Without exception they are very aware of what they need to supplement, for themselves and for the children, to provide a well-balanced life.
So for a solo mother, that might mean a loved uncle or grandad who provides a strong male role model for the child. And vice versa for a solo father. For children of a solo parent, that might mean close contact with married couples. And so on.
Foster children often deal with a birth family, so their concept of the perfect ‘nuclear family’ is already well extended. We suspect they are not nearly as hung up on the structure of the care they go into as the moral majority. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and often the children accept this more readily than adults.
So we are pleased to see that agencies in Australia consider that sole carers, with the right support, can make excellent foster parents.
For many of these children, a stable home with one loving parent is a vast improvement on what they have experienced.
And provided the child’s education and life experience shows them all the options that make up ‘a family’, their home circumstances should be a positive thing, not a negative.
The US must be well served with carers if they can afford to be so exclusive.
It seems inconceivable that policy-makers would try to limit who can apply, when the most important thing should be finding these children someone to love them.
What’s behind it? The conservative movement considers that the appropriate family is a mum, a dad and the kids.
Well, that’s great. In a perfect world. But most children entering care left a perfect world far behind them, if in fact they ever knew it. Many of them have never experienced the glorious ‘nuclear family’. They wouldn’t know it if they tripped over it. So why should it be the only type of care available?
Maybe, just maybe, the best care for many of these children might be finding one person who loves them. Just one. Who really loves them. And cares about them. Perhaps that’s all it takes?
The authorities have an obligation to seek out the best for these children once they enter care. But that doesn’t mean the nuclear family is essential in all instances. And it doesn’t mean the nuclear family is possible in all circumstances.
Should these children be denied a home where one parent who loves and nurtures them might be more than they have ever had before?
We know many single carers, both foster parents and birth parents. Without exception they are very aware of what they need to supplement, for themselves and for the children, to provide a well-balanced life.
So for a solo mother, that might mean a loved uncle or grandad who provides a strong male role model for the child. And vice versa for a solo father. For children of a solo parent, that might mean close contact with married couples. And so on.
Foster children often deal with a birth family, so their concept of the perfect ‘nuclear family’ is already well extended. We suspect they are not nearly as hung up on the structure of the care they go into as the moral majority. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and often the children accept this more readily than adults.
So we are pleased to see that agencies in Australia consider that sole carers, with the right support, can make excellent foster parents.
For many of these children, a stable home with one loving parent is a vast improvement on what they have experienced.
And provided the child’s education and life experience shows them all the options that make up ‘a family’, their home circumstances should be a positive thing, not a negative.
The US must be well served with carers if they can afford to be so exclusive.
'Make haste slowly' implementing the Wood recommendations
01/03/2009 21:54
We don’t go around quoting the ancient Romans, but this gem from Augustus has been in our family for years, and it seems entirely apt.
We take serious issue with Mr Crispin Hull from Barnardos on a number of points in his SMH article.
He is giving the Government a right hurry up in relation to the planning and implementation of the Wood Royal Commission recommendations. He warns that DOCs and member unions might be defending their territory and resisting change.
And yet his article is at risk of sounding like a territory grab. We’re sure his intentions are admirable. But his organisation stands to gain a great deal from the proposed changes - financially, in scale and in responsibility. We’d be much happier if the hurry up came from someone who didn’t have a vested interest in the outcome.
That would be Commissioner Wood, we hear you say?
Yes. He made the recommendations. But we haven’t seen him out there jumping about in relation to the timing.
A royal commission is a royal commission. Not a detailed business or organisational restructure blueprint. There is a level of detail Commissioner Wood would not have gone into. And he had to rely on submissions which had, as their purpose, WHY a change is justified. Not HOW it should happen. That’s a whole extra piece of work. And if DOCs is as dysfunctional as everyone says, then understanding that in order to hand it over to someone else will take time.
But we already outsource to these agencies, you say?
We do, but not on this scale, and not the breadth of cases we are talking about here. So we can’t assume that the system of governance and monitoring currently in place is sufficient. And we can’t assume the agencies have processes that will scale up. And we can’t assume they will have the skill base to cope with it. And we can’t assume that moving people across from DOCs to private agencies will actually change a thing.
Here are just some of the issues that need to be solved:
How will cases be handed off between organisations and departments?
Who will ultimately be responsible for the child’s welfare?
How will the relationships be monitored?
Where is the right of appeal if things go wrong?
Who sets the standards and policies?
Who monitors the agencies to ensure their approach is consistent?
Out-sourcing is a complex beast to handle. Many companies have done it in order to provide better service and cut costs, and have found the management of it quite extraordinary.
So take the time to plan it properly, for the childrens’ sake.
We don’t have territory to defend. We just think that such a huge change needs to be planned and implemented well.
Or we might find that we end up swapping an ‘unworkable’ monolithic government department for an outsourced model where no one is accountable and children don’t just fall through the cracks, they disappear into a chasm.
We take serious issue with Mr Crispin Hull from Barnardos on a number of points in his SMH article.
He is giving the Government a right hurry up in relation to the planning and implementation of the Wood Royal Commission recommendations. He warns that DOCs and member unions might be defending their territory and resisting change.
And yet his article is at risk of sounding like a territory grab. We’re sure his intentions are admirable. But his organisation stands to gain a great deal from the proposed changes - financially, in scale and in responsibility. We’d be much happier if the hurry up came from someone who didn’t have a vested interest in the outcome.
That would be Commissioner Wood, we hear you say?
Yes. He made the recommendations. But we haven’t seen him out there jumping about in relation to the timing.
A royal commission is a royal commission. Not a detailed business or organisational restructure blueprint. There is a level of detail Commissioner Wood would not have gone into. And he had to rely on submissions which had, as their purpose, WHY a change is justified. Not HOW it should happen. That’s a whole extra piece of work. And if DOCs is as dysfunctional as everyone says, then understanding that in order to hand it over to someone else will take time.
But we already outsource to these agencies, you say?
We do, but not on this scale, and not the breadth of cases we are talking about here. So we can’t assume that the system of governance and monitoring currently in place is sufficient. And we can’t assume the agencies have processes that will scale up. And we can’t assume they will have the skill base to cope with it. And we can’t assume that moving people across from DOCs to private agencies will actually change a thing.
Here are just some of the issues that need to be solved:
How will cases be handed off between organisations and departments?
Who will ultimately be responsible for the child’s welfare?
How will the relationships be monitored?
Where is the right of appeal if things go wrong?
Who sets the standards and policies?
Who monitors the agencies to ensure their approach is consistent?
Out-sourcing is a complex beast to handle. Many companies have done it in order to provide better service and cut costs, and have found the management of it quite extraordinary.
So take the time to plan it properly, for the childrens’ sake.
We don’t have territory to defend. We just think that such a huge change needs to be planned and implemented well.
Or we might find that we end up swapping an ‘unworkable’ monolithic government department for an outsourced model where no one is accountable and children don’t just fall through the cracks, they disappear into a chasm.
Too fat to adopt?
22/01/2009 21:58
This UK couple has been told they cannot adopt because the husband is classed as ‘morbidly obese’. This is tricky territory, so we will tread carefully.
The husband acknowledges he is ‘too fat’. The local authority states ‘The council's adoption service has a legal responsibility to ensure that children are placed with adopters who are able to provide the best possible lifelong care’.
We get to play both sides of the debate on this blog. So here they are.
There are many parents who are obese, who smoke, who drink, who do recreational drugs. In most of those instances they are not denied the right to parent their birth children.
So on the face of it, are we applying a double standard to prospective adoptive or foster parents who may not be ‘perfect’?
On the other hand, there are a number of parents out there whose alcohol or drug habits have spiralled out of control, or who have mental health and other issues. They have had their children removed from their care for the children’s safety. Those children have already suffered loss in their lives.
In adoption with a new family, the children deserve to know that the family they are placed with has the capacity to look after them for the long term.
We have seen the effect of multiple moves on children. Some never recover. The Camper has given us her heart, her love and her trust. We know, quite simply, that to break that now would change her life forever.
So if we put the child first, which is a theme of this site, then this couple needs to minimise any risk to their health.
Adoptive or long term foster parents need to be as healthy and strong as they can be, not because the authority says so, but because some small child – who is going to give them his or her heart and trust - deserves it.
We would suggest that it is the same standard that should apply to ANY parent by the way. Raising children is a tiring, strenuous, whole-hearted activity. We find physical health to be key in handling the workload and the stress. It helps us parent better by being able to share physical activity with our children.
So our advice to this couple? Improve your health. There is a child out there who needs you, but they do need you for the long term. You might not have met them yet but you owe it to them already.
Posted by EssentialMum
The husband acknowledges he is ‘too fat’. The local authority states ‘The council's adoption service has a legal responsibility to ensure that children are placed with adopters who are able to provide the best possible lifelong care’.
We get to play both sides of the debate on this blog. So here they are.
There are many parents who are obese, who smoke, who drink, who do recreational drugs. In most of those instances they are not denied the right to parent their birth children.
So on the face of it, are we applying a double standard to prospective adoptive or foster parents who may not be ‘perfect’?
On the other hand, there are a number of parents out there whose alcohol or drug habits have spiralled out of control, or who have mental health and other issues. They have had their children removed from their care for the children’s safety. Those children have already suffered loss in their lives.
In adoption with a new family, the children deserve to know that the family they are placed with has the capacity to look after them for the long term.
We have seen the effect of multiple moves on children. Some never recover. The Camper has given us her heart, her love and her trust. We know, quite simply, that to break that now would change her life forever.
So if we put the child first, which is a theme of this site, then this couple needs to minimise any risk to their health.
Adoptive or long term foster parents need to be as healthy and strong as they can be, not because the authority says so, but because some small child – who is going to give them his or her heart and trust - deserves it.
We would suggest that it is the same standard that should apply to ANY parent by the way. Raising children is a tiring, strenuous, whole-hearted activity. We find physical health to be key in handling the workload and the stress. It helps us parent better by being able to share physical activity with our children.
So our advice to this couple? Improve your health. There is a child out there who needs you, but they do need you for the long term. You might not have met them yet but you owe it to them already.
Posted by EssentialMum
Do foster children always become troubled teens?
28/12/2008 23:48
‘AN AMERICAN academic is to run a five-year study of NSW children who are removed from their parents and placed in foster care in the hope of finding ways to stop them becoming troubled teenagers.’ SMH 26/12/08
Well Professor Fred Wulczyn, let’s get you started on the way.
The system often prevents these children from putting down roots with a new family. Either the legal process fails to catch up with the child’s needs and the child spends too long in ‘temporary care’, or the system applies the invisible brand to them – ‘foster child’ – and demands things of them that ‘normal’ children never have to contemplate. Let us explain.
Happy Camper had been bounced around the system for some years before she landed with us. She had been emotionally abandoned and that was obvious from the minute we met her. Her physical needs hadn’t been well looked after either, but they were relatively easier to fix. We threw every ounce of care, love and attention into making her feel that we were her family, that we were here to stay. As her level of understanding has grown, we’ve explained that she will get a say in anything that happens now.
But some workers viewed our level of passion and commitment with nothing less than suspicion. They worked hard to redevelop the bond between the Camper and birth family, and increase her reliance on the social worker. So when the Camper was coming to grips with the fact that no one in her birth family was able to take care of her, and hadn’t, and she desperately wanted to believe she was finally somewhere safe, she had a worker telling her quite forcefully through actions and words that it was all about birth family. We could see the confusion and distrust in her eyes.
We know carers who foster with that particular agency, and the agenda (restitution with birth families) hasn’t changed. A new worker has suddenly told a carer, who has had a child in care from 4 months to early teen years, that she considers the child needs to have more contact with her birth mum. They see birth mum and other members of the birth family every school holidays and it is pitched at just the right level. The child is old enough to ask her foster mum, who she considers to be her mum, ‘why?’ We hope the carer has what it takes to ask the agency ‘why?’ on behalf of the child.
We can tell you that this particular child is thriving – winning awards at school, happy, a very capable sportsperson, very savvy about her circumstances - and she handles her birth mum’s probing for information with an ease well beyond her years. So she is one of Professor Wulczyn’s success stories. We’re working on the Camper being a success story as well.
So what characterises these two placements?
The children have put down roots. They feel stable. They trust that nothing is going to change.
The system recognises they have been put into long term care for a very good reason, and is not trying to undermine that. The children are free to get on with living.
They have contact with their birth families, but not at the expense of time with their new families and their sense of stability. It’s a delicate balance.
Imagine if you were a child, and had a worker continually telling you how important your birth mum was, insisting you cuddle the woman when you only see her 5 times a year, reminding you to your face that you are ‘a child in care’, not calling the mum and dad you live with ‘mum’ or ‘dad’, but ‘carer? Imagine if you couldn’t have a play date with your friends on a particular day in the school holidays because of contact with your birth family. Imagine if you knew you couldn’t go away on holidays with your family because you had to be back for access with your birth family?
The agency recognises a ‘good’ placement and plays a monitoring role.
There is often a huge lack of continuity of approach from one worker to the next. Good governance demands that new workers review placements and all the circumstances around them, but aspects of the placement should not be changed without very good reason. These should be thoughtfully monitored and individually researched reasons. They should be discussed and reviewed with the carers over time before any decision to change is made. Workers should be taught that leaving their individual mark on a case is not always a sign of success.
We are good carers.
Forgive us if we state it bluntly, but we are. We treat these children as if they were our own. We don’t expect them to do anything much differently to our other children. We’re not in it for any financial gain. We love them.
So we are genuinely puzzled as to why the system has such a hard time codifying what works?
Maybe it’s not talking to the right people? Maybe it is not prepared to hear what we are saying? Maybe there are agendas and policies that the system, and those who work in it, need to give up?
Posted by EssentialMum
Well Professor Fred Wulczyn, let’s get you started on the way.
The system often prevents these children from putting down roots with a new family. Either the legal process fails to catch up with the child’s needs and the child spends too long in ‘temporary care’, or the system applies the invisible brand to them – ‘foster child’ – and demands things of them that ‘normal’ children never have to contemplate. Let us explain.
Happy Camper had been bounced around the system for some years before she landed with us. She had been emotionally abandoned and that was obvious from the minute we met her. Her physical needs hadn’t been well looked after either, but they were relatively easier to fix. We threw every ounce of care, love and attention into making her feel that we were her family, that we were here to stay. As her level of understanding has grown, we’ve explained that she will get a say in anything that happens now.
But some workers viewed our level of passion and commitment with nothing less than suspicion. They worked hard to redevelop the bond between the Camper and birth family, and increase her reliance on the social worker. So when the Camper was coming to grips with the fact that no one in her birth family was able to take care of her, and hadn’t, and she desperately wanted to believe she was finally somewhere safe, she had a worker telling her quite forcefully through actions and words that it was all about birth family. We could see the confusion and distrust in her eyes.
We know carers who foster with that particular agency, and the agenda (restitution with birth families) hasn’t changed. A new worker has suddenly told a carer, who has had a child in care from 4 months to early teen years, that she considers the child needs to have more contact with her birth mum. They see birth mum and other members of the birth family every school holidays and it is pitched at just the right level. The child is old enough to ask her foster mum, who she considers to be her mum, ‘why?’ We hope the carer has what it takes to ask the agency ‘why?’ on behalf of the child.
We can tell you that this particular child is thriving – winning awards at school, happy, a very capable sportsperson, very savvy about her circumstances - and she handles her birth mum’s probing for information with an ease well beyond her years. So she is one of Professor Wulczyn’s success stories. We’re working on the Camper being a success story as well.
So what characterises these two placements?
The children have put down roots. They feel stable. They trust that nothing is going to change.
The system recognises they have been put into long term care for a very good reason, and is not trying to undermine that. The children are free to get on with living.
They have contact with their birth families, but not at the expense of time with their new families and their sense of stability. It’s a delicate balance.
Imagine if you were a child, and had a worker continually telling you how important your birth mum was, insisting you cuddle the woman when you only see her 5 times a year, reminding you to your face that you are ‘a child in care’, not calling the mum and dad you live with ‘mum’ or ‘dad’, but ‘carer? Imagine if you couldn’t have a play date with your friends on a particular day in the school holidays because of contact with your birth family. Imagine if you knew you couldn’t go away on holidays with your family because you had to be back for access with your birth family?
The agency recognises a ‘good’ placement and plays a monitoring role.
There is often a huge lack of continuity of approach from one worker to the next. Good governance demands that new workers review placements and all the circumstances around them, but aspects of the placement should not be changed without very good reason. These should be thoughtfully monitored and individually researched reasons. They should be discussed and reviewed with the carers over time before any decision to change is made. Workers should be taught that leaving their individual mark on a case is not always a sign of success.
We are good carers.
Forgive us if we state it bluntly, but we are. We treat these children as if they were our own. We don’t expect them to do anything much differently to our other children. We’re not in it for any financial gain. We love them.
So we are genuinely puzzled as to why the system has such a hard time codifying what works?
Maybe it’s not talking to the right people? Maybe it is not prepared to hear what we are saying? Maybe there are agendas and policies that the system, and those who work in it, need to give up?
Posted by EssentialMum