Vulnerable Need Same Life Chances

By Paul McDonald
The Age
March 1, 2012

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/vulnerable-need-same-life-chances-20120229-1u38y.html

Improvements to child protection will not come cheaply but must be made.

THE figures are staggering: over the past 10 years, reports of child abuse and neglect in Victoria have risen by 45 per cent. Families under-capable and over-stressed, children traumatised by family violence, addictions creating chaotic routines for babies and erratic relationships have resulted in a stretched and struggling system.

There has been no shortage of reviews in this policy area: one every three years on average over the past three decades.

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The Cummins review, tabled in Parliament this week, takes a more evolutionary than revolutionary approach to its task, guiding rather than leading government on how to improve the system. It is extensive though remarkably unemotional, choosing not to print any individual cases.

The safe rather than reformist approach may disappoint some who held hopes for wholesale reform of the system. But it will challenge the government in a number of ways, and retired Supreme Court judge Philip Cummins proposes some encouraging directions.

For the first time, he puts a price on the cost of child abuse in this state: $1.9 billion and another billion is lost in ''life outcome''. This will help future budgetary considerations of the costs and benefits of investment in this area.

Cummins recommends more accountability from government departments. He calls for the closer monitoring of services delivered by the community sector. The prioritising of services to disadvantaged postcodes is also good, because we know that many child protection reports come from these areas.

When it comes to significantly reforming the Children's Court, Cummins blinks, but his proposal to decentralise the court is smart.

Things begin to get less clear, however, in the critical area of out-of-home care. Cummins' overall vision here is sound, alerting government to the fact that better results for children in such care are unlikely without ''significant investment'', yet he is less clear on precisely what investment is needed.

He also puts too much emphasis on seeking more data and more planning to improve the system. While these are important, great advances for children seldom come quickly from such activity.

The recommendation to widen mandatory reporting of child abuse is misguided. The problem is not that abused children are not finding their way into the purview of child protection authorities - the system demonstrates it is getting the right children reported to it.

The real problem is that many children are not getting the right first response. More than half the children notified in 2009-10 had previously been reported, and 2000 children are subject to up to 10 reports each. Widening mandatory reporting does little to get undetected neglected children into care and only results in more logjam for authorities.

Cummins does suggest new interventions to respond to families repeatedly presenting to the authorities, which may help to limit the ''churn'' of children tumbling in and out of the system.

But other gnarly issues - such as the fact that 50 per cent of children will have a different case worker every four-to-five months - are left either untouched or underdone. New ways of structuring the system should have been proposed if we are going to change this experience for the child.

The report has enough financial implications to make any Treasury official reach for the Valium, yet possibly not enough clarity to ensure decisive action on some of the big problems.

The challenge for the government is clear: in tight economic times, the improvements needed will not come cheaply. Hardly helping this scenario is the government's announcement of 500 job cuts in the very department tasked with making good many of Cummins' recommendations.

No one should doubt that the government is keen to see improvements for vulnerable children. What remains to be seen is whether the government can and will put its extensive resources and capability into ensuring such children get the same chances in life as other children already enjoy.

This, Cummins argues, will require an enormous effort by all concerned. However, he is in no doubt on two things: no improvements will be realised without a significant investment and without both of the government's hands on the wheel.

Paul McDonald is chief executive officer of Anglicare Victoria and a former executive director of the Children, Youth and Family Division of the Department of Human Services.