Susionline

'Runner blames the dreaded 'secularists' for all child abuse.'

No Susi I blame the corrupt nature of humans which is not helped when fed by putried secular dogma. This is what leads to an increase in child abuse.

Diver Dan - occasionally grandparents and other close family have similar issues to the parent/s. This can be particularly disturbing and dangerous where idiot policy decrees that for cultural on top of kinship considerations, short of hell freezing, children MUST be placed within their 'ethnic group' and vetting of suitable 'carers' is lacklustre at best, criminally negligent at worst ...

Of course, children of any background can face similar problems. A grandparent or pair of grandparents may have substance abuse, mental or physical health issues, unsuitable housing, insufficient resources etc etc. If this is the case I suggest they are not the best answer regardless of good intention.

In the great majority of cases however, the grandies are the best choice - provided the idiot judiciary can get past the 'preservation of the family' dogma which currently ensures that most kids go back into dysfunctional environments when the 22 yr old experienced Social Worker deems Mummy & Daddy/Step-Daddy #1,#2,#3,#4 'rehabilitated' and ready to reclaim the unfortunate pawns ... er I mean kids.

Grandparents raising their grandchildren, either because of parental death or inability, are grossly under supported and deserve a far better, fairer deal.

divine_msn:

# In the great majority of cases however, the grandies are the best choice - provided the idiot judiciary can get past the 'preservation of the family' dogma which currently ensures that most kids go back into dysfunctional environments when the 22 yr old experienced Social Worker deems Mummy & Daddy/Step-Daddy #1,#2,#3,#4 'rehabilitated' and ready to reclaim the unfortunate pawns ... #

...Perfect summation divine_msn: You obviously circle the reality closely. There is a youthful arrogance to be surmounted on the occasion of contact with DOCS. It is not the lot of DOCS to squirrel abused kids from social dysfunctional and low socioeconomic backgrounds, into cushy middle class settings, totally foreign to them. The attitudes of the middle class are frightening to those kids, and are quickly identified for their condescension presented as care, as they are in foster homes.

...When distant, as they too often are in rural areas, the foster homes present an impenetrable barrier to grandparent contact with the needy child. This situation is an “official crime” and abuse, with the cost loaded onto the child to be paid in isolation

Jeremy, this is a very useful article – useful because it serves as a reference point for what could happen if we let the debate over child protection lapse into undisciplined, ideological territory. Normally I would describe your unequivocal support for a generalised approach to such a complex issue as naïve, but the fact that we are talking about people’s whole lives here just makes it frightening, irresponsible, and dangerous.

You can’t just remove a child from their parents. In order to remove a child, a court needs to be satisfied that it is in their best interests – which if memory serves is the guiding principle behind CP legislation in all Australian states. In order for this to happen, there needs to be sufficient evidence to establish that abuse or neglect has occurred, and that the danger of it recurring outweighs the not-insignificant drawbacks for the child of removal. In a sense this is equivalent to any criminal case: the CP caseworkers are a bit like police, in that they have to gather this evidence - however their job is much more difficult as they simultaneously need to ensure the process causes as little disruption as possible to the child. Secondly, the evidence of abuse, and even more so of neglect, is highly ephemeral. The reason these cases go through the children’s courts is precisely because there is insufficient evidence to justify police involvement (and you can hardly expect a 3-year-old to testify against its parents over a criminal matter). And yet you seem to be arguing that an even lesser extent of evidence than is available currently is sufficient to permanently remove a child from their parents – a “punishment” that I would argue exceeds life imprisonment in severity. Neither is this good for the kids: you need only look into the stories of the Forgotten Australians and of those who were adopted as a result of the churches’ ill-conceived practices last century to see the fractured despondency people who have been “adopted out” without adequate justification are forced to live with their whole lives

I’m not sure where you get your “data” on placement prevention programs. Can you break this down state by state? Because it’s meaningless otherwise. And what do you classify as “placement prevention” anyway? Do you mean voluntary, case specific early intervention case management of families with emerging difficulties, or more intensive crisis intervention in cases where harm is suspected but doesn’t justify removal? You say: “intensive family preservation services has therefore increased by 317%”, but overlook the fact that these services hardly existed 10 years ago, and have not yet been running long enough anywhere in Australia to show what effect they are having. In any case, your claim that “placement prevention programs that prolong the time vulnerable children spend in the custody of dysfunctional parents are flawed in terms of child safety” is a nonsense – since, if there is any suggestion that the program is not in the interests of the child then it will be discontinued, and statutory intervention taken. These programs operate on the very premise that they have a reasonable chance of success. As you point out, they are very expensive, and will only be used as a last resort, and where the prospect of success exists.

Finally, you reel off that OOHC numbers have doubled in the last decade - isn’t this a national tragedy? But you explain it in financial terms! – and yet you still maintain that we are not making enough removals. How does that work?

I shudder to think where your motivation for making the arguments you do comes from – but if you are as interested in eugenics as you appear then wouldn’t it be more effective to state that explicitly? It’s simple really: if people were required to prove their abilities and obtain a license to have kids then obviously there would be no child abuse! (and have you ever even spent time with any of these “dysfunctional families”? Would you believe I suspect you have not?).

[cont]

I would suggest that a better (though more difficult – perhaps Jeremy you’re just lazy?) strategy is to aim to prevent abuse before it occurs, by alerting people to what it actually is, ensuring government and NGO services collaborate effectively, ensuring there are enough social workers so that they can spend adequate time with families to understand their problems, ensuring OOHC and adoption is resourced enough to make it work for the kids (because as it stands, it falls well short), and ultimately, building social cohesion by emphasising the responsibility we all have to each other to make the world a more accepting, less adversarial place. Your silly, ill-informed one-man campaign is not helping, and is doing the CIS no favours.