SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN

I want to go back to an issue we examined last week. A tragedy. A teenaged girl had fallen through a hole in the floor in a derelict, asbestos-riddled, Melbourne city building. Her subsequently fatal head injuries made newspaper headlines and prompted some understandably emotional radio interviews and comments.

Emma Oates aged 13, was in supposedly safe, state care when she died. I talked on air to the mother of another teenager who took to the streets and took heroin and died. And on 3AW Neil Mitchell talked to Emma’s mother, Angela Carson. There were newspaper pictures of Emma’s grandmother Di McGhee who took umbrage at descriptions of Emma being described as a “street kid”.

The Herald Sun editorialized about “a pretty, headstrong girl” who was in the care of the Department of Human Services when she ran away and -- according to her mother -- was then “ exposed to dangerous drugs and bad company”.

This was, obviously, a tragedy. Faults in childcare have been exposed in the past. I’ve exposed them. But as I said last week: What is the department supposed to do? Children in their care have not necessarily been convicted of any crime. They can’t be locked up 24 hours a day for seven days a week. Their own parents would protest against that.

On the day that Emma died a security guard tried to get her to leave the dilapidated building. She was supposedly there looking for a squatter – her 17-year-old boyfriend.

Her mother, on Mitchell’s programme and in the newspapers, said “I want somebody to be accountable for Emma’s death”. Fair comment.

But before lambasting the taxpayer-funded Department of Human Services -- which took her young daughter into care at taxpayer’s expense -- why doesn’t her mother accept some responsibility?

Why was her child taken into care in the first place? It has been glossed over but Angela Carson, the mother, was on a methadone programme. To me, that means Mum has had a heroin addiction. Was that why little Emma kept running away? Was that why she was taken into care? Was she such a neglected child she had to be?

As I said last week, I will kick a bureaucrat or a social worker or a government minister when I think he or she has been negligent or manifestly done something wrong.

But surely, in this case, the mother, and the grandmother, must take some of the responsibility for the chain of events which led that vulnerable little girl being out on the streets and in bad company.

The Department of Human Services, predictably, understandably, said they would not comment on individual cases. Human Services. But we know that, ultimately, the decision to put a child into care is made by the Children’s Court.

Human Services can make an interim order, and then it’s up to the Court to ratify it or overturn it. In this case the court obviously felt little Emma was safer and better off in Government care that with her mother or grandmother.

Today I received an e-mail from the CEO of the unit where Emma had been staying. It said in part:

“CARA is a small community-based organization operating in the Eastern Region. It provides accommodation care and support to girls aged 12 – 17 who are unable to live at home for a range of reasons.

CARA is unique in the way that we operate and whilst we do provide residential care, we do so under the “cottage parent” model whereby house parents are employed to live in with the children and provide love, guidance and support within the context of a safe homely environment.

Youth workers and specialist supports are employed to work along side the house parent and develop and implement individual programs to meet the needs of each young person in our care.

We are blessed to have Marlene and Leigh who are in their 11th year with us and over the years, they have worked with many girls who have been extremely challenging and are high risk.

Both Marlene and Leigh deserve recognition, not criticism, for the wonderful work that they do. In the time that the girls are with them, sometimes up to 3 years, they parent them and love them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There needs to be some acknowledgement of this and given that Emma was with them for just under 12 months, there also needs to be some understanding for the depth of grief that they also feel over her death.

Right now I feel saddened that they feel that their integrity and that of CARA has been questioned, because of the barrage of criticism and generalization in the media around the quality of residential care.

Throughout this, even though CARA’s telephone number is in the white pages, at no time did anyone from the 3AW morning talkback show or the Herald Sun attempt to ring our organization and ask about who we are and what we do and possibly ask the question why was Emma in care.

I wonder if these people who are so willing to cast the first stone have ever sat and held a child when they are breaking their heart over the rejection and abuse that they have experienced by a parent or parents.

I wonder if they have ever sat in intensive care supporting a child who has slashed their arms or taken a cocktail of medication because their emotional pain is so bad that they don’t want to live anymore.

Derryn, the rejection and the degree of abuse that many of these children and young people experience is beyond most people’s comprehension and I have the utmost respect for these kids – and despite their extreme hardships, they do the best that they can.

The majority of these children are already running away, out of the school system and in many cases unable to read or write prior to entering residential care. It seems to be an expectation that once they enter care, that we as a welfare community have a magic wand to fix their problems immediately.

Most who work in this industry would agree that it is not a perfect system, but it is the system under which we currently work and it is my understanding that a review of the present system is being undertaken and submissions for this review closed on Friday.

Emma’s death is an absolute tragedy and I implore that rather than her death continue to be shrouded by negativity and blame that it be a catalyst for positive change.

Thank you again for being the voice of sanity and for giving us some peace in my mind, I now feel that I can breath a little and get on with the very important task of preparing a memorial service for Emma - so as we too can say our goodbyes to a beautiful child who we were all extremely fond of.

Yours most sincerely

Robyn Di Virgilio"

That is a rational and caring and concerned voice. It should have been heard earlier.

Monday, November 1, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004