Children Legislation Amendment (Wood Inquiry Recommendations) Bill 2009
Mr President, I rise as a Christian Democrat to speak on the Children Legislation Amendment (Wood Inquiry Recommendations) Bill.
The contemporary challenge facing all child protection systems in Australia, in particular in New South Wales as the state with the largest child protection system, is sufficiently resourcing flexible prevention and early intervention services so as to reduce the numbers of children and young people who require the state to step in to keep them safe.
The objects of this Bill is to amend various Acts and other legislation to give effect to certain recommendation in the Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection Services in NSW (the Wood Report).
In particular, the Bill:
A) Amends the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998:
i. To raise “the risk of harm” reporting threshold so that a child or young person will not be reported to the Director-General of the Department of Community Services (DoCS) unless the circumstances that are causing concern for the safety, welfare or well-being of the child or young person are present to a significant extent, and
ii. To extend the circumstances when a child or young person is at risk of significant harm to include the situation when the child or young person is not receiving an education as required by the Education Act 1990, and
iii. To provide for alternative mandatory reporting arrangements under which matters relating to children being at risk of significant harm may initially be assessed within the reporter’s agency instead of being reported directly to DoCS, and
B) Amends the Children’s Court Act 1987 to provide for the appointment of a District Court Judge as the senior judicial officer of the Children’s Court (to be known as the President of the Children’s Court),
C) Amends the Commission for Children and Young People Act 1998 to extend the child-related employment provisions under that Act (including the requirement for background checking) to a wider class of people, and
D) Makes a number of other amendments in response to the recommendations of the Wood Report.
According to the Minister’s Agreement in Principle speech, this legislation gives effect to recommendations of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection Services in New South Wales by The Hon James Wood.
The Wood Report offers a unique opportunity to make a difference to the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable children, young people and families. The Inquiry’s report provided the Government with a blueprint for the next stage of child protection reform in this State. In response, the Government has developed its action plan – Keep them safe: a shared approach to child well-being. The action plan radically changes the way the Government and community address child safety and wellbeing to build a stronger, more effective child protection system. The Bill implements the actions that require changes to the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998.
This was a comprehensive investigation of the State’s child protection system and resulted in a substantial report containing 111 recommendations. The key principles, which underpin this Inquiry’s reforms, are:
• Child protection is the collective responsibility of the whole government and of the community.
• Primary responsibility for rearing and supporting children and young people should rest with families and communities, and with government providing support where it is needed, either directly or through the funded non-government sector.
On the 3rd of March, the Premier and Minister for Community Services announced the Government’s response to the Wood Special Commission of Inquiry Report into Child Protection, which has accepted 106 out of 1111 of the Wood Report Recommendations in full or in principle.
The Keep Them Safe: A Shared Approach to Child Wellbeing Action Plan sets out what the Government wants to achieve over the next 5 years and has been accompanied by a $230 million investment in what is described as Stage 1 funding. Further funding is to be considered as part of the State 2009-10 Budget to be announced in June.
Key features of the Action Plan include:
• Approximately $100 million of the Stage 1 investment will be allocated to NGO program delivery.
• Additional resources for universal health, early childhood education and “Triple P” parenting program.
• Expansion of Brighter Futures to provide support to an additional 200 families – this growth money to be allocated to NGOs.
• Consideration of transfer of all Brighter Futures to NGOs to occur after the evaluation is completed in September 2010.
• Additional resources for Family Preservation Services provided by NGOs.
• Changing the reporting threshold for matters reported to DOCS to “risk of significant harm”.
• The establishment of Child Well being Units in Education, Health, Police, Juvenile Justice, DADHC and Housing by October to advise and support mandatory reporters and to refer cases of children and young people at risk that do not meet the “significant harm” threshold. These units are seen as being important to allowing DOCS to concentrate on the higher priority cases and to achieving significant cultural change to ensure shared responsibility for improved outcomes.
• Changes to the processes at the Children’s Court to make them less legalistic and adversarial.
• Trial the Regulation Intake and Referral Services (RIRS) in three locations for 12 months.
• Transfer of most Out of Home Care (OOHC) service provision to NGOs but with changes designed to strengthen capacity through workforce development, infrastructure support and performance reporting.
• Better support for children and young people in OOHC through more dedicated coordinators in Education and Health.
• Resources for working collaboratively with Aboriginal community organisations to build and strengthen their capacity to deliver services to Aboriginal communities.
• Development of a five-year workforce development strategy.
• The Plan also talks about strengthening partnerships across government and NGOs using the Working Together for NSW principles.
• Annual public reports on progress will be made.
Mr President, I will not elucidate on other areas of the Bill as Members before me have already done so.
There is one area that I would like to concentrate on and that is the issue of Child Deaths.
Wood made three recommendations regarding child deaths:
First, the Ombudsman continue to review deaths of children who die from child abuse and neglect and in suspicious circumstances and children who die in out of home care, juvenile detention centres and disability services.
These are called “reviewable deaths”. He would no longer review deaths of children or their siblings reported to DOCS within the previous three years. The Government has accepted and is implementing this recommendation.
Second, the Ombudsman report every two years on his reviewable deaths. The Government has accepted and is implementing this recommendation.
Finally, the Chair, secretariat and research support for the Child Death Review Team be moved from the Commission to the Ombudsman. The Government is not implementing this recommendation. Both the Child Death Review Team and the Commission both agree with the Government in not implementing this recommendation.
The Child Death Review Team (CDRT) is responsible for collecting information on child deaths – including those children who may have died in accidents or from natural causes. The CDRT identifies trends and patterns and makes recommendation to prevent those deaths. It reports annually to Parliament. Additionally, every three years the CDRT tables a special report which looks at an aspect of child deaths in detail such as Sudden Unexpected Death of Infants.
The specific research functions of the Team are to maintain a Child Death Register, analyse the data regarding the causes of death, identify patterns and trends relating to these deaths and make recommendations to government and non-government agencies for the prevention of further child deaths.
Key Findings of CDRT in 2006
• From January to December 2006, the deaths of 628 children and young people aged 0-17 years were registered in NSW.
• There is an increase in the overall death rate for the second consecutive year. The rate in 2006 is the highest since 2001. The increase is explained by the rise in infant deaths (both male and female) and deaths of males overall.
• There is an increase in the number of infant deaths from 367 in 2005 to 401 in 2006. This is the second consecutive year that the number of infant deaths increased.
• The death rate is higher for males than for females. This pattern of higher death rates for males has been evident since 1996.
• Vulnerable children are over-represented in external causes of death. Children identified as vulnerable are more likely to die from external causes of death compared with those not identified as vulnerable. Of note 70 percent of assault deaths, 62.5 percent of drowning deaths and 40 percent of sudden and unexpected deaths in infancy were of children identified as vulnerable.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people are over-represented. Of the 628 children and young people who died in 2006, 84 were identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. The rate of death among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in 2006 is estimated to be nearly four times the overall child death rate in NSW.
• The most remote regions in NSW have the highest rate of child deaths in the State. This is more than three times the death rate seen in highly accessible areas.
Because the CDRT is a committee of the Commission, an independent agency reporting directly to Parliament, the Parliament Joint Standing Committee on Children and Young People directly oversight every CDRT report.
The Commission can work across systems and sectors to advocate for and extend the implementation of the CDRT recommendations.
Keeping the CDRT with the Commission means the Commission can follow through on implementing the CDRT’s recommendations through its relationship with community groups, NGO’s, professional associations and government.
For example, the CDRT identified the deaths of toddlers in reverse driveway deaths and made recommendations. The Commission then worked with a range of players in the area including KidsSafe Australia, the Injury Risk Management Research Centre, NRMA and the Motor Accidents Authority to address the issue from several angles.
Another relationship to maintain is through research, policy, training and community education functions. For example, the Commission is joining with the College of Physicians in developing a national policy response to children with rare conditions. The Commission will draw on the child death register to examine rates and factors impacting on those rates.
The CDRT continues to be oversighted by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Children and Young People.
Keeping the CDRT with the Commission means the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Children and Young People remain the Parliamentary oversight body not the Committee on the Ombudsman and the Police Integrity Commission.
The Committee on Children and Young People has the built knowledge and understanding about children’s lives, the causes of their deaths and the services they use. This strengthens the oversight of the CDRT.
The separation of roles between the CDRT supported by the Commission and the Ombudsman’s reviewable deaths function has worked well since 2002. Prior to 2002, the CDRT reviewed all deaths and also deaths from child abuse and neglect. The CDRT supported transferring the reviewable death function to the Ombudsman as it fitted with his mandate of oversighting government systems. This arrangement has worked well for over 5 years. Both Acts have been independently reviewed in the past 5 years and neither review recommended the CDRT move to the Ombudsman’s agency.
The Commission assists the CDRT to maintain a broad focus on all child deaths and it is an arrangement that has worked well in the past. The combination of knowledge, relationships experience and the paramount interest on the children’s well being is the focus of the CDRT and the Commission.
The Bill does not reduce scrutiny of DoCS by the Ombudsman. The NSW Ombudsman’s power to keep public agencies under scrutiny is retained under section 13 of the Ombudsman Act. The Ombudsman has the power to enter premises, to inspect and take copies of any documents and make a report to Parliament about the conduct of any public agency in relation to any matter, at his own instigation or as the result of a complaint.
The Bill simply removes the mandatory requirement that the Ombudsman review every death (from any cause at all) of a child who was reported to DoCS within the previous three years, or the death (from any cause at all) of a sibling of such a child. The Ombudsman maintains the power to investigate any or all such deaths, at his discretion. This will enable him to concentrate on deaths due to abuse and neglect.
Similarly, the change to the mandatory reporting period from every year to every two years does not prevent the Ombudsman from reporting more often, at his discretion.
The Ombudsman can still decide, for example, to investigate if a child was reported to DoCS and then later died of cancer and he can still table a report about DoCS involvement with that child, if he believes an investigation is warranted.
The Bill continues to make it mandatory for him to review deaths where the child dies from abuse, neglect or in suspicious circumstances. And this fits with the Ombudsman’s role of oversighting government agencies.
Just as the Commission for Children and Young People’s advocates for all children, the Child Death Review Team reviews all child deaths, most of which were not known to DoCS and did not die from child abuse, neglect or in suspicious circumstances. Indeed over the past 12 years, 2% of children have died from assault in NSW.
For this reason the Child Death Review Team (CDRT) should stay with the Commission. This view is shared by members of the CDRT whose members include Dr Ian Cameron (CEO NSW Rural Doctors Association), Dr Dianne Little (Forensic Pathologist) and Dr John Howard (National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre ). It is worth noting that in the 10 years since the CDRT’s establishment, deaths of children overall have fallen by 38 percent.
If we are to continue to reduce the vast majority of child deaths then the CDRT should be located within an organisation that can cover the breadth of issues, professional associations and community agencies that help prevent these deaths, rather than in an organisation whose primary focus and culture is about scrutiny of public agencies.
The Commission for Children and Young People remains the appropriate agency to undertake this broader function. Keeping the CDRT with the Commission means the Commission can follow through on implementing the CDRT’s recommendations through its relationships with community groups, non government sector, professional associations and government and through using its research, policy, training and community education functions.
For example the CDRT identified the deaths of toddlers in reverse driveway deaths and made recommendations. The Commission then worked with a range of players in the area including KidsSafe Australia, the Injury Risk Management Research Centre at the University of NSW, NRMA and the Motor Accident Authority to address the issue from several angles.
Human behavioural factors were addressed in an educational video, pamphlets and a TV commercial. Built environment factors were addressed with the aim of separating play areas and driveways which the Commission has continued to promote in their wider work on the Built Environment. Vehicle engineering and technological factors were addressed with vehicle devices and design to improve rear vision including refractive panels and rounded mirrors. Additionally a vehicle visibility rating was introduced by the NRMA.
Another example is in relation to risk taking by young people which the Team identified as an important factor in the deaths of young people. On behalf of the Team the Commission convened a roundtable of experts using its extensive links with experts from across Australia to secure their participation.
The Roundtable included Prof Steve Allsop (National Drug Research institute, Curtin University of Technology, WA); Dr Lynne Hillier, (Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, Latrobe University, Vic); Prof Susan Sawyer, (Centre for Adolescent Health, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne); Assoc Prof Leonie Segal, (Centre for Health Economics, Monash University); and Prof Mary Sheehan, (Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology).
The Roundtable advised that a successful response had to be well coordinated, intervene early in risk taking pathways and involve young people at all stages. The Commission has taken this up and is now leading an injury prevention project involving a range of government and non government agencies and young people to intervene early in risk taking pathways. Additionally the Roundtable noted that alcohol fuels some of the most risky behaviours and the Commission has continued to advocate for and support alcohol reduction strategies.
The Child Death Review Team reports every year on the progress of implementation of previous recommendations. Once it is satisfied the agencies are doing what they wanted, they let them get on with it and no longer report on them in the Annual Report. Of the 88 recommendations made by the Team since 1998, 71 % had been dealt with to the Team’s satisfaction at the end of the 2007 Annual Report. This reporting lets the public see the progress being made in implementing the recommendations.
Keeping the CDRT with the Commission also means the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Children and Young People remains the Parliamentary oversight body not the Committee on the Ombudsman and Police Integrity Commission.
The Committee on Children and Young People focuses on children. This means they have built knowledge and understanding about children’s lives, the causes of their deaths and the services they use. This strengthens their oversight of the CDRT. The Committee on the Ombudsman and Police Integrity Commission, on the other hand, has a legal, anti-corruption focus. Corruption and poor governance are rarely the cause of child deaths in NSW or play a major role in preventing them. This makes their oversight potentially less relevant than that provided by the Committee on Children and Young People.
One of the central recommendations from the Wood Inquiry is the proposal to “contract out” services to the community sector for children and their families judged not to be at significant risk of harm. As former Superintendent of Wesley Mission and overseeing the operations of Dalmar House, I welcome the broader involvement of the community sector in working with vulnerable children and their families.
The Bill’s enactment will:
• Address the inability of any single child welfare agency to respond effectively to the present level of reporting of child abuse and neglect.
• Ensure that services for children can be provided by those agencies in closest contact with children.
• Focus DoCS on responding to the needs of children at risk of the most significant harm.
• Focus the Ombudsman on reviewing deaths where there is a causal link between a child’s death and the workings of the child protection system.
• Raise the profile of the Children’s Court and focus its attention on matters of judicial determination rather than matters of practice best dealt with by other agencies such as the Children’s Guardian.
The best interests and the protection of children is paramount and clearly, it is enshrined in this Bill. Therefore, I support the Children Legislation Amendment (Wood Inquiry Recommendations) Bill and I commend it to the House.