Page 4496 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 18 October 2011
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This morning the minister made the claim that the decision to use an unauthorised entity was justifiable because the children were deemed to be at risk and that because the service had some knowledge of the children, they were best placed to care for them. Indeed, given the choice between the abusive or neglectful home that they are being removed from and the care that they were being placed in, this argument may well be correct. If it had been on one or even two occasions, I could understand and would be prepared to accept that these things can happen. The fact that it happened to 24 children and young people is simply unacceptable.
The failure is aggravated by the fact that I know there are services out there who are prepared to run additional full-time care services to cater for these situations and ensure that there is never a time when there is not a response option that has been properly analysed, ready to provide the best possible care for those children and young people. I was concerned to hear that the minister was attempting to blame others for what is, of course, the directorate’s responsibility. Ensuring that the accommodation provided was up to scratch is the directorate’s responsibility and trying to deflect this in some way is simply inappropriate.
I would like to stress that I am in no way making any adverse comments on the conduct of the community service concerned. I would in fact like to commend them for attempting to fill a gap and care for these children with a professional ethic, care and commitment that goes beyond the call of duty. Let us not forget that we have also put the service’s workers in this very awkward situation.
I know that they did try and do the best they could in the best interests of the children, often at great personal expense. I have previously expressed my extreme disappointment at the way the service was treated by the department. I hope that this incident is a catalyst to reassess the way the directorate deals with community organisations to ensure that they are meeting their obligations to these organisations under the social compact.
The minister must change the practice of the department. It is time to open your eyes and realise that we have a massive problem here. I say “massive” because I am concerned about what further reviews may find. The 24 cases we found in stage 1 shocked me. I thought five was abhorrent, but here we are talking about 24 cases over a 12-month period. Quite frankly, someone has to take responsibility. Someone has to find the source of the problems and fix them. Is it senior management? Is it middle management? Is there too much management? Take responsibility. Ultimately these children are in your care.
It should be noted that the directorate has changed the model of service delivery in the area of emergency care in recent years and the model of funding. I do want that reviewed. I do want it to be looked at. I believe that the fee-for-service structure in place at the moment is broken. I do not believe it is a way to ensure that we have emergency response that is there, is in place 24 hours a day, seven days a week for each week of the year. I believe we need to go back and fund those services full time and move away from this fee for service.
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