Scathing report finds Department of Communities and Justice not providing the care needed to protect children’s safety and welfare
The NSW Department of Communities and Justice did not provide home-based safety assessments for 75% of the 112,592 children identified as being at ‘risk of significant harm’, the auditor general found.The NSW Department of Communities and Justice did not provide home-based safety assessments for 75% of the 112,592 children identified as being at ‘risk of significant harm’, the auditor general found.
“Their cases were closed without any follow-up services from DCJ, and DCJ does not know the outcomes for these children,” the report said.Only 10,059 of those children identified to have been potentially at significant risk of harm received some form of family support service. The effectiveness of the service is unknown, however, because the DCJ was unable to provide a breakdown of what kind of support those children received due to “data quality issues”.
In August last year, 30% of the 471 children in the state living in emergency care were placed in hotels, motels and serviced apartments at a cost of $829,000 a year per child on average. In 1998, the NSW government passed legislation to establish principles to safeguard Aboriginal children in out-of-home care, but the audit found that, 26 years later, the DCJ was yet to put the principles into its policies or processes.
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