A PROTEST outside Family and Community Services (FACS) offices earlier this week aimed to shed light on current systems of child protection, which organisers deem as “a basic human rights violation”.
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Led by Convener of the Alliance for Family Preservation and Restoration, Mary Moore (a former intensive care nurse), the group hopes to bring change to State Government adoption law processes, which they believe are unfair onto biological parents and children who are forcibly removed.
Campaigning in Goulburn on Tuesday was a strategic move, Ms Moore said, to bring the issue to the doorstep of the minister who engineered the adoption before foster-care legislation, former FACS Minister Pru Goward.
“We are asking for what Pru Goward promised; openness, transparency and accountability, because at the moment there is none,” Ms Moore said.
The group is calling for the development of mandated laws focused on working with vulnerable families before child removal is an option.
Further, the group would like to see compulsory reporting in FACS offices of individual cases, and that in the case of a child being removed, a binding contract is drawn up stating exactly what steps the parent needs to take in order to have their child returned.
“We want it mandated in law that if a child is taken that a contract is written for what exactly parents need to do to get their child back.
Then, if they do those things they are returned immediately,” Ms Moore continued.
“Nearly half of all children in out of home care in Australia are in NSW. It’s NSW that has the problem because we don’t practice family preservation and restoration,” she claimed.
Ms Moore described the Alliance group as a “voice for the poor” and said if no ground was made with NSW Government the matter would be taken to the human rights commission and further to the human rights court in Geneva.
Complex issue: Ms Goward responds
IN a statement to the Post yesterday, now Planning Minister Pru Goward defended the Baird Government’s child protection reforms, describing it as a “complex issue”.
“We all want to keep children safe, and I take my hat off to the hardworking caseworkers who have to make decisions which sometimes can be life or death for these little children,” Ms Goward said.
“Child protection is a complex issue, and I make no apologies for putting the welfare of a young child first.
“I understand parents who have had children removed due to drug abuse, physical abuse, domestic violence or alcoholism may have the capacity to change and reform themselves.
“Some do reform, and some don’t.
“When the court decides a parent can’t or won’t care for a child, what this Government has said is adoption should be considered before that child goes into the foster care system, where they can have up to 20 different homes before the age of 18.”
Ms Goward said the system is more “transparent” than ever before and expressed disappointment that Ms Moore hadn’t made contact with her personally while in the City.
“Child protection reform by the Baird Government has been about making sure we have the right laws in place, about making the system more transparent by publishing more information than ever before, and by investing heavily in getting better outcomes, such as the $500 million increase in funding announced in last year’s Budget,” she said.
“If Mary Moore had wanted to discuss her concerns with me, she could have dropped into the Electorate Office where I am most days.
“I am disappointed. I am proud of our reforms to keep our children safe.”
