Child safety body’s first scathing report on dozens of deaths - Brisbane Times - Matt Dennien 17 Feb 2022
The first annual report into the deaths of dozens of children known to Queensland’s child safety system last year has warned of “entrenched systemic issues” impacting the speed and quality of help available.
Updated figures revealed more than one in 10 of the 398 youths who died last financial year had been known to the department in the 12 months before their deaths. Children known to the Department of Children’s 'child safety unit' have a mortality rate almost twice as high as other children.
Deputy state coroner Jane Bentley concluded that the department “failed in its duty” to protect Mason Lee, whose 2016 death triggered the formation of the Child Death Review Board four years later.
Queensland’s Child Death Review Board was established in 2020 as an external review point for such deaths as part of recommendations to government around the case of Caboolture toddler Mason Jet Lee’s four years earlier.
A coroner later declared the department had “failed in its duty” to protect him.
The coronial report followed a damning review of the department’s complaint system by the auditor general and earlier calls for an overhaul of the strained system.
A subsequent review of the coroner’s findings by the public sector watchdog determined some staff involved in the case should have been sacked.
In her message in the CDRB’s inaugural report, which reviewed the deaths of 55 children known to child safety officers in the past financial year and was tabled in Parliament on Thursday, chair Cheryl Vardon said its 10 recommendations focused on changes that could be enacted quickly.
“However, there are entrenched systemic issues that impact on the timeliness and quality of responses to children and families,” Ms Vardon said. “They will take longer to address.”
Workload pressures and resources constraints around staff were highlighted, along with the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children — making up 23 of the cases considered and half of the suicides — among those who had died.
Almost two-thirds of the 55 children were under the age of five. Ten died from
natural causes, with 45 due to external causes including -
* 10 cases of assault or neglect,
* nine cases of sudden unexpected infant deaths,
* six suicides, and
* seven still under investigation.
Four of those who died were in foster care, kinship care, or on a permanent guardianship order at the time of their death.
The board recommended the department improve its ability to review child protection history when a concern was raised, including “reasonable workloads” for staff to avoid shortcuts, and better enable officers to assess whether a parent was able and willing to protect a child from harm.
The department was also asked to “immediately examine” why almost 60 per cent of young people eligible for medium-long-term suicide risk management plans while under community supervision by Youth Justice had not had a plan developed.
A recommendation was also made to extend to private schools a Queensland Family and Child Commission program of notifying the schools of children who died by suicide, which would trigger support for other students.
The state government has accepted all recommendations, with Attorney-General, Shannon Fentiman, saying it was “crucial” to learn from tragedies in the child protection system.
The QFCC’s latest annual report, also tabled on Thursday, noted that child deaths in the state continued to trend down since a recent peak of 520 in the 2008-09 financial year. Of the 398 reported in the last financial year, 53 were known to child safety.