Child Protection and Foster Care: Government Duty of Care a Blur......

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While the state government persists to use foster care as it’s sole source of child care for troubled children there is an anomaly that is driving good people away from signing on as foster care providers.

The state government cannot be sued by foster carers who are falsely accused of abuse of a child. This again shows a lack of effective policy, procedure and practice of a government department who is currently responsible for over 1800 children. Some of the children in foster care have backgrounds that most of us cannot even imagine. They have been abused in ways that for most of us are not able to be comprehended. These kids have sexualized behaviors and require intensive care and support as well as psychological treatment – whether they get it or not is another matter.

Foster carers are placed in terrible situations where they are not fully informed of the history of a child and are therefore ill prepared for a child who could make false allegations against them or other family members.   Yet if the state knowingly places such a child with a foster carer and an allegation is made, the person is charged and then found to be not guilty the state has no duty of care to that foster carer.

Surely, if the state recruits foster carers there should be some safety net or some assistance or some compensation available to those who are found not guilty.  When asked in a Standing Committee Inquiry about such responsibilities it was made very clear by a Families SA spokesperson that the state has a duty of care to the children and it would be a conflict to then support the foster carer.

My view is that the state has a duty of care to both parties – the children and the carers.

I have heard some terrible stories of very troubled children being placed with well meaning and kind hearted people where allegations have been made that have torn the lives of people apart. Poor historical knowledge of the children places foster carers in a situation where they are unable to take the necessary precautions to protect themselves against false allegations and children in their care receive very poor if any professional support to cope with their childhood traumas. This is a recipe for disaster.

The face of Australia has changed dramatically and the social fabric of this country is being destroyed by governments who fail to protect their citizens.  adly there have been some foster carers who have used the system to have access to vulnerable children as we have heard from the Mulligan Inquiry and little has been done to improve the recruitment process or to put measures in place that may detect a predator of children. This failure also means that good people also carry the stigma.

The department may argue that all foster carers are required to undergo police checks, but in real life many child abusers remain undetected and have no criminal records.  As  a matter of fact, in the book “Red Tape Rape”  Mr. Ki  Meekins tells his story where his abusers were part of the system established to provide care to vulnerable children.  Some of those perpetrators remained in the employ of the government department for decades after his story of abuse ended. 

So in simple terms, how do we tell the good people from the bad people?  Forensic polygraphing for job selection is about the only tool available that can provide a indication if a person has a tendency to prey on children. It should be incorporated as part of the recruitment regime post haste. This would have two probable outcomes:

• Predators would be reluctant to apply to be foster carers.

• It would detect persons who are indicated a person to be watched and perhaps even  investigated.

There are many misconceptions about the use of polygraphs and also misinformation that they can be beaten.  Although there are some people who are not suitable for polygraph testing they are easily identified in the preliminary testing.

Polygraphing has come a long way over the decades and is used in the United States as part of the recruitment process for the FBI and also in their monitoring and detection of pedophiles. Surely with this technology we can at least investigate something new rather than continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Polygraphs are also useful in identifying false allegations and this at least would be one strategy in place to protect foster carers and of course the children they care for. In the apology that parliament made in 2008 one of the statements made was “to those who reported these abuses and were not believed – we are sorry”. 

In today’s social climate we need more than an apology we need a plan to reduce or eliminate the risk for all persons in the area of child protection.