Resi care kids are being traded as commodities in a lucrative broking of accommodation services by providers accused of subcontracting out services to second and third tier providers.
Queensland Shadow Child Protection Minister Amanda Camm says the state is seeing “consistent failings” from the government to address the protection and safety of vulnerable children.
The latest bombshell follows claims of unqualified workers punted into high risk houses, bidding for high-care children to gain more funding and failure to report absconded kids from care homes in order to still claim a nightly allowance, have been levelled against Cairns resi-care providers.
And last month a 15-year-old boy in the care of the state after serving a six-month sentence in Cleveland Youth Detention Centre for stealing cars was released and put on a plane to Cairns, but it’s claimed the boy waited hours for a lift but no one showed up.
Cleveland Youth Detention Centre. Picture: Matt Taylor.
Youth Justice has repeatedly declined to state which agencies are responsible for the care of state wards transiting from jail into care.
According to Youth Advocacy Centre chief executive Katherine Hayes, the department may delegate the job to a resi-care provider but ultimately the Department of Child Safety is responsible for the child’s care.
“It’s not a seamless process,” she said.
“Often kids are left without being properly provided for and in one case a worker dropped a young person at an unsafe house on the way to a resi-care home.
Graffiti scrawled during a break-in appears to reference Cleveland Youth Detention Centre. Picture: Rise and Bake (Facebook)
“It was a condition of bail that he lived in resi care so they are complicit in that child’s breach of bail.
“It’s not good enough.”
The boy allegedly abandoned at the airport is one of up to 140 children housed in a collection of 73 homes scattered throughout Cairns’ suburbs.
Fresh out of Cleveland, the 15-year-old used $20 he was released with to pay for a taxi to his grandmother’s house.
Founder of Changing Young Lives Perri Conti claimed the boy spent much of the next day at Centrelink signing up for an emergency payment but had no supporting documents from the tax office or Child Safety.
The Cairns Child Safety service centre on Lake St in the Cairns CBD. Picture: Peter Carruthers
“How can you expect them to get a job when they can’t log into MyGov, they can’t read and write, they can’t get Centrelink and then they go and steal. And we just go around and around,” Ms Conti said.
Youth Advocacy Centre’s Ms Hayes said children ought to be released with Centrelink paperwork completed but understaffed units at Cleveland meant often this didn’t happen.
She said no Centrelink support increased the chance of reoffending.
“There seems to be a level of complacency in properly ensuring these kids are properly provided for when exiting detention,” she said.
A smashed IFYS vehicle in the driveway of a Creedy St, Westcourt residential care house. Picture: Supplied
“It’s a really vital period, and there are 72-hour plans in place but if they are not actioned they are no good.
“The relevant departments know this is a problem due to the failure of proper staff at youth detention centres.
“This is not a new problem.”
Government data from 2019/20 shows 56.8 per cent of Queensland children aged between 10 and 16 returned to sentenced supervision in a 12-month period. Although rates have improved since 2014/15 Queensland’s reoffending rates are the highest in the country.
While 80 per cent of juvenile first-time offenders do not subsequently reoffend, once entangled in the system more than 85 per cent of the state’s most serious young criminals reoffend within 12 months, according to government data.
A Cairns Instagram user post boasting about stealing cars.
A 15-year-old girl pops out the window of a crashed stolen car last year. Picture: Supplied
The 15-year-old abandoned at the Cairns Airport has since been busted in a stolen car and is now back behind bars.
Ms Hayes said until out-of-care evolves to provide nurturing and love in a family-like environment similar to the successful Treatment Foster Care Oregon model, disadvantage of state wards will continue.
“The residential care model does not encourage a real attachment or relationship with an adult and the kids miss out on that guidance they get from a family that encourages you to go to school and develop a productive life and they look to belong and find criminal gangs as a way of doing that,” she said.
Minors living at a south Cairns residential care home in an allegedly stolen car. Picture: Supplied
While supporting a shake-up of the residential care system ordered by Child Safety Minister Craig Crawford in July, Ms Hayes said for meaningful change to take place an external organisation needed to take charge of the review.
“I think we need to examine the licensing of resi-care providers, the majority of providers are unlicensed and that affects the quality of care they are providing,” she said.
“And the subcontracting from Child Safety to other providers, each takes a cut and reduces the efficiency of the service and none of this is done with the child’s best interest as the focus.”
Department of Child Safety stated the agency funds six licensed residential care service providers that operate within the Cairns electorate however numbers of unlicensed operators were unavailable at time of publication.
“Unlicensed does not mean unregulated and we expect the same high-quality service from both unlicensed and licensed providers,” a spokeswoman said.
Subcontracting the care of state wards appears to be accepted practice within the child protection industry but providers must receive approval from the Department of Child Safety before sourcing a second tier resi care company to house children in care and the original provider remains liable.
“Where they do subcontract, the provider is responsible for ensuring that the services performed by the subcontractor meet the requirements of the service agreement,” a spokeswoman said.
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