Tuesday, 12 November 2024

Child protection

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (19:00): (1268) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Children, the Honourable Lizzie Blandthorn. It relates to the most vulnerable cohort in our society in Victoria, and that is children in the foster care, kinship care and child protection sector. We know from the Foster Care Association of Victoria – and indeed there is a newly formed Friends of Foster Care Association in this Parliament, showing the interest that MPs have in this region – from data from their recent survey, that new carer households are falling. Over the past 12 months there have been 12 per cent less. We know from that same survey that foster carers in the system are leaving the system at an alarming rate and not being replaced.

One of the foster carers who has walked the walk, talked the talk and lived the life – and lives her life for foster care and kinship care families and their children, the most vulnerable children – is A Better Life for Foster Kids’ Heather Baird. Heather is an angel. She is a good woman, and she hails from Gippsland. She constantly raises the issues, and I would like to bring them to the attention of the minister. The minister has met with me and Heather Baird in the past, and the action I seek from the minister is to meet with her again, because again the system is suffering, the system is broken and the system must be improved, and Heather has that wealth of knowledge.

Some of the comments that Heather would like to discuss with Minister Blandthorn relate to the child protection system, and they look like this: there should be a mentoring system for all child protection workers for at least two years as they enter into the system so that they can actually gain experience. We hear horror stories about how families just feel that those caseworkers are not doing the right thing, are not well experienced and do not understand either the act, the child or the foster care family. When children enter the system there should be a respite carer for at least 48 hours so the child entering the system – or when a placement has broken down – is lodged and safe for at least 48 hours so that there can be proper planning to assess that child and their needs. Carers should be properly informed of the history of the child being placed in their care. For many placements the child is dumped on the carer’s front doorstep and they do not have an understanding of that child’s history or their medical needs. Also there should be specialised carers of victims of sexual abuse so that the children are really getting their needs met by the foster carers who take them on and support them to the nth degree. These are my requests: for the minister to meet with Heather Baird and have those fulsome discussions to better support our children in need.