For the third consecutive year safety and stability in care continues to be the biggest advocacy issue raised by children and young people in care, as reported in our latest Guardian for Children and Young People Annual Report.
As at 30 June 2020 there were 4,263 children and young people under the guardianship of the Chief Executive through care and protection court orders – an increase of 9.5% from the previous year. The number of Aboriginal children and young people in care also increased by 13% from last year’s numbers, reflecting a nation-wide systemic trend of Aboriginal children and young people being drastically overrepresented in child protection systems.
During the year, our advocates received 442 enquiries, of which 391 were within our mandate. Of these, 137 children and young people in care approached us themselves. Children and young people with disabilities were the subject of 20% of the enquiries received and almost one third of enquiries (32%) related to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children and young people.
Placement safety and stability was raised as a primary issue by young people who felt unsafe because of the behaviours of other young people. The most commonly reported safety issues were fear of, and risks posed by, co-residents, due to bullying, intimidation, threats of harm, physical assaults, harmful sexual behaviour, verbal abuse, witnessing physical and verbal outbursts resulting in property damage and being pressured/coerced to engage in substance abuse and criminal activity. The majority of young people who reported feeling and/or being unsafe in their living arrangement requested advocacy support for a placement move.
Other advocacy enquiries from children and young people included concerns and issues in relation to their case management (from having difficulties contacting their case manager to not understanding the rationale for case work decisions that affected their lives); and not having contact with their ‘significant others’, most notably their siblings.
The annual report has also raised a number of other issues, including:
– an increasing number of children and young people caught in both the child protection and youth justice systems (described as having ‘dual status’). Since we began receiving data on the rates of admissions to KTYJC in 2018, the proportion of admissions by those in care has jumped from 30.8% to 39.4%. In 2019-20, more than 28.3% of all individuals admitted to Kurlana Tapa Youth Justice Centre (KTYJC) were also in care at the time of their admission.
– serious systemic gaps and failings that interfere with the detection and prevention of harmful sexual behaviour between children and young people in care
– concerns regarding the ongoing, targeted sexual exploitation of children and young people in care by adults in the community.
For more details about these issues, as well as highlights from our office from the year, you can read the report in full here.
You can download a PDF copy of the Office of the Guardian 2017-18 Annual Report from this website. The Report was tabled in the South Australian Parliament on 15 November 2017.
