Submission to NSW parliamentary inquiry into child protection and social services systems
22 December 2020 | Download full submission
Since 2014, reforms to child protection laws and Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) policies have prioritised providing early support to families to help them keep their children safe at home and reducing the number of matters heard in the Children’s Court. Despite the stated commitment to early support and family preservation, child protection expenditure remains crisis driven. At the same time reforms, including amendments to the Children & Young Person’s (Care and Protection Act) 1998 in 2018, have elevated adoption and guardianship up the hierarchy of child placements.
In 2017-18 the NSW Government spent $2.2 billion on child protection. Of this, 54% ($1.2 billion) was spent on out-of-home care, permanency support, guardianship and adoption and just 6.8% ($149.5 million) on early support and prevention.2 NCOSS notes that the NSW Budget for 2020-21 invested no new money in child protection and ‘failed to make substantive investments in early intervention.’
Despite repeated attempts at reform and countless government and independent inquiries, the child protection system in NSW remains broken. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children remain grossly over-represented, making up 34% of children in out-of-home care. Parents who were removed from their families as children continue to have their children removed at disproportionate rates. And the ‘care-criminalisation’ cycle continues unabated.
In the last five years alone, a plethora of reviews have made hundreds of recommendations about how to reorient the child protection system towards early support, prevention and family preservation, including:
- Independent Review of Out of Home Care (‘Tune’ review) (2016)
- NSW Parliament’s General Purpose Standing Committee No. 2 Inquiry into Child Protection (2017)
- Statutory review of the Children & Young Persons (Care & Protection) Act 1998 (2018)
- Independent Review of Aboriginal Children in Out-of-Home Care (‘Family Is Culture’ Review) (2020)
While we welcome the interest in this very important issue, we are concerned that unless the Government begins to take seriously and implement recommendations that have already been made, this inquiry may have little fruitful outcome. In particular, we are deeply disappointed by the NSW Government’s lacklustre response to the Family Is Culture Review. Urgent action is needed to ensure the experiences of the children whose stories informed the review are not repeated. The solutions are clear. No further reviews are needed.
As such, this short submission recommends the NSW Government immediately:
- Fund and implement the 125 recommendations from the Family Is Culture Review, prioritising legislative reforms.
- Provide adequate, recurrent funding to Aboriginal-controlled and community-based independent legal services, to assist families navigating the child protection system.