Pelican: “I think we have come some way in ensuring those professions that deal with children have no criminal convictions to child related offences but it could go further to ensure that children are not left alone with an adult for any length of time.”

The most vulnerable group of children in our society now would have to be the foster children. They are the ones being left with adults for years at a time. After initial checks there is very little monitoring of what sort of situation they are in. It is usual for Short Term foster children (in care until court decides they go to long term carers or back to parents) regularly to see their parents so there is probably more chance of it being noticed if a child was not being treated well.

But the Long Term foster kids can have very few and far between access to anyone else.

With the governments backing of the Wood Recommendations I’d suggest they start working immediately on a pre-apology for these Ignored ones. No voice no vote no value.

Proff:” Complaints made by a child, unless witnessed by an adult, are likely to be treated as hearsay.”

Similar to complaints against NGO’s. Handled internally and no one goes to “eyeball” the actual children because “oh they ( NGO’s) have their own psychologists etc to sort it out”. If DoCS wont help the child/ren they placed in care I have no idea who is supposed to.

Rob: “…is that if justice is anchored high up in the societal hierarchy, it will be much easier to get an atonement and true healing for the victims.”

You lost me there.

Pied Piper and Others.

Hi All,

Earlier I spoke as a Community Advocate. However, I will speak now from personal experience in support of what I write.
Growing up in an orphanage at a time when children in them were treated as no more than objects. Although at this point, I will state that not all of the people in the orphanages were bad people. On the contrary, their were many who were compassionate, however, my experience was it was those in position of power who often abused the children.
I was a victim of the bullying and brutality practiced by those who were supposed to look after us.

Preaching Christianity on one hand, the children were treated as little cheap labour or objects without rights.

Because I refused to be cowed I often received a greater amount of beltings for standing up for myself.

One thing I remember was when I was belted I would refuse to cry and sometimes would ask “have you finished now”?

In hindsight it was not the wisest thing to say when you have no support or protection , but while I was being belted my defence was to “turn off” so that they could not reach me.

Children complaining to parents visiting them were severely punished to discourage “tale telling”. One punishment, after the initial belting, was to stand on a brick path for 2-3 months in silence.
As a result, I have a dislike of bullying in any form, whether by adults, governments or corporations and willingly have acted as an advocate on behalf of those less able to stand up for themselves.

professori_au

continued

Comment:

My wife, ( a real life Pollyanna) accused me of having a Pollyanna streak, refusing to give in to adversity and to turn negatives around and developing positives from my experiences. I educated myself, bought land on the Murray irrigation, turning it into a farm.

At the same time I studied farming practices, engineering and manufacturing. Later worked as a consultant in private enterprise and government.

While there is no doubt my orphanage experience has left its mark on me, generally I have been able to put it aside and move on.

My wife and I took in young people with problems from broken homes, drugs and alcohol and just problems growing up. We were Mum and Dad to them and one of the nicest things one young lad said was “The best thing I remember Dad was that you and Mum were a always avaialbe to us, even when you were busy in the business”.

professori_au

Proff: “ Children complaining to parents visiting them were severely punished to discourage “tale telling”. One punishment, after the initial belting, was to stand on a brick path for 2-3 months in silence.”

That is what I was really worried about, whether or not these kids would think to tell family while on visits. Another problem is “crying wolf” and this comes from the parents, they are obviously hurt and grieving and very sensitive so complaint after complaint can go back to the caseworkers after visits about hair styles, choice of clothing and every single little scratch on them.

I understand this but the parents themselves can often make it worse for the other children in care as the caseworkers receive regular complaints after an access visit.

A Pollyanna streak may be nature overcoming nurture (or lack of)? Imagine one of the mean adults you remember, now put them in a house with just one or two children to focus on.

I understand your stance on bullying, I can tolerate a lot but not bullying. My interactions with a local NGO (LWB) made me think of a large greedy bully, even bullying DoCS. When I saw that happen it occurred to me how unsafe all the children were. Then I found out about Justice Wood and his report to give all the children to NGO’s I think panic set it. But it is a weird situation, I defend DoCS and in the meantime DoCS are not happy at me for defending children against an NGO.

But Proff no one can advocate for the children and no one does. They are kept away from the public. There are some bad people, some callous people and some people for whom it is just about the money fostering the young Aussies. Far as I can see all the good ones who care and do their best will not make up for the kiddies suffering because of this government.

Will you accept an apology at this stage?

Maybe a thank you is also in order to the Forgotten that did not continue the cycle.

Hey Whistler, I view it as an Act of attempted cultural genocide I think. Nah I don’t, I’m an immigrant and they could train me about the aboriginal heritage and basic culture so the children keep their family identity intact. But then they could teach all school children here that one.

I don’t know how successful the drive is for aboriginal carers or how much aboriginal blood one is required to have. Even little kids in foster care with a smidgeon have to be viewed a different way in the department and a different act or a different part of the act followed.

What advantage did it give the government to create legislation that furthers a segregation of the aboriginal peoples?

Now one of my maybe stupid questions… is Rudd better – will he do better for the aboriginals? Or all the children? Does this government prefer privatizing things? They will pay more for this.

I know one home for young mums that charges DOCS for the mums to stay - or not (funding for beds whether full or not). The NGO also gets funding from other orgs being a “charity”. Then they charge the young mums rent and require them to buy all their own food and clothing out of their single mother pensions. I think they charge for daycare they provide as well while the mums go to school. What sort of government thinks this is okay?

I hope this talk of The Forgotten ones does bring the plight of the foster children now more in to the open.

Good morning Romany. Thank you I am pleased the questions don’t bug you because I start feeling quite guilty at times asking about an issue because I couldn’t find an answer in google. I don’t see many questions being asked here. Maybe Graham should have new OLO users pass a test first.[smile]

Pied Piper,
A while back I suggested that you start a thread about problem kids. This thread has shown that posters do want to talk about kids and I think you have a wealth of experience that you could pass on about dealing with behavioural issues, etc.

Some time back there was a thread here rising from a media article about a school nurse taking a 14 year old girl to a GP and her getting the 'pill' without the knowlrdge of the girls parents. That attracted a lot of discussion and opinions.

Hope you think about it.

Or, maybe your experience could be put into a book?