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Left hungry and too cold to go to school: Urgent review of children in care

The state government has ordered an immediate review of out-of-home care services for children in NSW following claims that two boys were left hungry and too cold to go to school this year while their care provider sought thousands of dollars a day to look after them.

In a devastating assessment of the sector, a children’s court magistrate has detailed the “unconscionable” treatment, “appalling neglect,” and “failure” in care by providers, including Lifestyle Solutions and the NSW Department of Communities and Justice.

Two young boys, dubbed Finn and Lincoln Hughes, were left too cold and hungry to go to school, a court has heard.Two young boys, dubbed Finn and Lincoln Hughes, were left too cold and hungry to go to school, a court has heard.Credit: Fairfax Media

In granting an application for a clinical report into the wellbeing of the boys, dubbed Finn and Lincoln Hughes by the court, magistrate Tracy Sheedy put on record details of the plight of the children, including:

  • how they complained to their school principal of hunger pains and to their lawyer about not having enough food;
  • how they were too cold to go to school because they did not have a winter uniform;
  • how their care provider quoted $77,000 per month to care for them;
  • and how their psychological welfare was suffering after experiencing a police raid, separation from siblings, and abuse in care since coming to the attention of authorities.

‘Absolutely appalling’: 100 vulnerable children died in NSW last year

Report finds suicide among cohort reached five-year peak while risk of significant harm rose steadily, with Indigenous children over-represented.

About 100 vulnerable children died in New South Wales last year despite being known by the state justice’s system, according to a government report described as “absolutely appalling” by the national children’s commissioner.

Suicide among vulnerable children peaked to its highest level in five years while risk of significant harm reports have steadily increased for a decade, according to the NSW government’s annual report into child deaths.

Just over one in five of the 100 deaths were Indigenous.

It was the highest number of deaths found since 2011 and the third year in a row the case numbers had increased.

NSW Labor said the most vulnerable children in the state were being left behind and needed “urgent” state government support.

“Year after year the … government delivers platitudes instead of funding,” Labor’s spokesperson for family and community services, Kate Washington, said.

NSW child-protection workers 'regularly' mislead court and needlessly take Indigenous kids: report

A damning review of Facs’ approach to Aboriginal families finds urgent reform is needed.

New South Wales child protection workers regularly give “misleading” evidence to the children’s court, often take the most traumatic option by removing Aboriginal children – including newborns – from their families, and operate in a “closed system” that needs urgent reform to make it more transparent and child-friendly, according to a new report.

The Family is Culture review released this week is a three-year study of the case files of 1,144 Aboriginal children who entered the NSW out-of-home-care system between 2015 and 2016.

In the worst cases, the review found “children who did not appear to be at risk of harm were removed from their families”, the children’s court was “misinformed about vitally important information” and, in a deeply concerning finding, in some cases “the location of young people under the care and protection of the minister was unknown”.

A child
Child protection: governments found to be spending $500m a year without any real gains.

Child Protective Services and the business of taking your children

Across the country, children are being taken from loving homes by government agencies collectively known as Child Protective Services. Although these agencies are supposed to protect children, they are actually the engine that drives a multi-billion dollar industry.

This industry, which includes social workers, psychologists,  lawyers, judges, the police, and foster care, revolves around governmental management of children and families. It profits every time a new child is placed into the system. And its survival requires a constant supply of fresh children.

To feed the machine, CPS has become increasingly intrusive to the point where your child might be taken away from you for something as small as asking a doctor for a second opinion.

Medical Kidnapping

Consider the case of Baby Sammy Nikolayev.

Anna and Alex Nikolayev took their 5-month old baby, Sammy, to Sutter Memorial Hospital for treatment of flu-like symptoms. But, after seeing the staff in action, they didn’t like the care that Sammy was receiving:

  • At one point, Anna questioned the antibiotics Sammy was being given and was alarmed that the nurse administering the treatment didn’t know why the child was receiving them. Anna claims that a doctor later said that Sammy should not have been receiving the medication.
  • When the doctors started telling the Nikolayev’s that Sammy needed heart surgery, they decided they wanted to get a second opinion:
    Anna argued with doctors about getting a second opinion. Without a proper discharge, she finally took Sammy out of the hospital to get a second opinion at Kaiser Permanente.
  • The doctor at Kaiser examined the baby and concluded that it was perfectly fine for him to go home with his parents. But, the doctors at Sutter disagreed. They contacted CPS, who sent out a social worker. That social worker contacted the police.
  • The day after Sammy was cleared by the Kaiser doctor and sent home with his parents, police raided the Nikolayev’s house and abducted 5-month old Sammy.

Former Community Services worker sued for failing to protect sisters from sexually abusive stepfather

After suffering years of sexual abuse at the hands of their stepfather, two sisters are suing a former community services case worker and the NSW Government for failing to protect them.  The women, known as TB and DC, say that despite knowing about the abuse and documenting their complaints, both the department and the former officer did not report it to the police.

Lawyers for the pair say it is the first time a Department of Community Services (DOCS) worker has been personally sued for not protecting children at risk. The former worker, Carolyn Quinn, is now a high-profile child protection consultant and was appointed by the minister to the NSW Carers Advisory Council.

The abuse of the two girls began in the 1970s when they were five and eight.  Their stepfather repeatedly raped and indecently assaulted them. He took sexually explicit photographs of the pair and regularly beat and threatened them.  The court heard that their stepfather would beat the girls with a leather strap, threaten them with a knife and handcuff them. 

In early 1983, one of the sisters phoned the then-Department of Youth and Community Services (now DOCS) to report the abuse.  Ms Quinn interviewed the girl and prepared a report detailing their story.

Sisters abused by Stepfather awarded $1.5m

crime-sceneTwo sisters who sued the state of New South Wales for failing to protect them from their abusive stepfather have been awarded almost $1.5 million in damages after an eight-year battle for compensation.

The women, known as TB and DC, were repeatedly raped and indecently assaulted by their stepfather when they were children in the 1970s and 1980s.

The payout marks the end of a long legal battle for the sisters, which began in 2008 when they sued the state and their former community services case worker for negligence in the NSW Supreme Court.

They claimed that despite knowing about the abuse and documenting their complaints, both the Department of Community Services (DOCS) and the officer did not report it to the police. They alleged that had the abuse been reported, they would have been protected from further abuse.

The former case worker, Carolyn Quinn, is now a high-profile child protection consultant and a former member of the NSW Carers Advisory Council.

Last year, the sisters lost their initial claim, with Justice D ruling that while the department had failed in its duty of care to report the abuse, he did not accept that the abuse continued after DOCS was first notified in 1983.

Justice Campbell ruled Ms Quinn did not owe the girls a duty of care and even if she had, she had fulfilled that duty by reporting the abuse to her superiors.

MOTHER'S NIGHTMARE: Mum who let her two kids sleep in her bed has them taken away and put up for adoption

Cartoon Movement - Child ProtectionSocial workers raised concerns about the boys, both aged under four, after they spotted bruising on the lads'.

A MUM who let her two kids sleep in her bed has had them taken off her and put up for adoption by a judge.

Social workers raised concerns about the boys, both aged under four, after they spotted bruising on the lads. A mum who allowed her two young boys to sleep in the same bed as her has had them removed from her care.  Judge Peter Greene said the children’s mother had failed to act on advice about “co-sleeping” from childcare professionals and disregarded advice about feeding.

Judge Greene said proceedings began after the older boy’s leg was bruised when he was a few months old.  The judge had concluded that the bruising had been “inflicted by the (boys’ father) but unintentionally as a result of using excessive force”.  He had also concluded that the boys’ mother was “was ignoring advice against co-sleeping”.  Social workers had been told to supervise and support the family.  Professionals had then become concerned about the younger boy.  Checks revealed bruises and a broken wrist when he was months old.

Complaints fell on deaf ears at state agency ahead of foster parent's arrest, sources tell WBRZ

Editors notes: Why did they let a single man who's never been married, who requested only girls of a certain age, allow this to happen? How is that not a red flag?" Anderson. https://www.wafb.com/2019/02/14/volunteer-religion-teacher-accused-indecent-behavior-with-juveniles-sexual-battery/ https://www.wbrz.com/news/after-foster-parent-s-arrest-and-wbrz-report-lawmaker-calls-for-investigation/ https://www.wbrz.com/news/neighbors-on-edge-as-accused-child-molester-released-from-jail/ https://www.wbrz.com/news/former-foster-dad-accused-of-inappropriate-contact-with-children-released-from-jail/
Abusers job or title:: Foster carer male

GONZALES – Once again, the state agency overseeing the welfare and safety of children, finds itself at the center of allegations of not doing enough to protect the most innocent.

Thursday, WBRZ was first to report on the arrest of a foster parent in Ascension Parish. Jerry Oubre was booked into the Ascension Parish jail on sexual battery and indecent behavior with juveniles charges. He is being held without bond.

Oubre, a state foster parent, was able to avoid any “red flags,” the head of the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services said in an interview with WBRZ.

Outrage quickly followed, though, from people who are close to Oubre, who said they filed complaints directly to the DCFS.

“...I reported this… almost two years to the date,” a woman wrote in an email to DCFS and obtained by WBRZ. The woman emailed the child advocacy department after learning of Oubre’s arrest from WBRZ.

Abuser Name or Alias:: Jerry Oubre
Type of Abuse:: Sexual
Matter Resolved?: Ongoing

ACLU of Illinois reacts to 35 DCFS employees accused of falsifying reports and testimony since 2014

The below statement can be attributed to Claire Stewart, Staff Counsel at the ACLU of Illinois:

“The public reporting that 35 employees working for or on behalf of DCFS have been disciplined in recent years for falsifying reports and testimony is appalling. How could the Department fail to address its chronic failure to retain a sufficient workforce, and its inadequate supervisory practices, after uncovering such wrongdoing? The answer is that leadership has careened from one crisis to another rather than doing the hard work to fix its fundamentally broken practices.

ACLU of Illinois reacts to 35 DCFS employees accused of falsifying reports and testimony since 2014

The below statement can be attributed to Claire Stewart, Staff Counsel at the ACLU of Illinois:

“The public reporting that 35 employees working for or on behalf of DCFS have been disciplined in recent years for falsifying reports and testimony is appalling. How could the Department fail to address its chronic failure to retain a sufficient workforce, and its inadequate supervisory practices, after uncovering such wrongdoing? The answer is that leadership has careened from one crisis to another rather than doing the hard work to fix its fundamentally broken practices.

When CPS kidnaps children for money

When CPS Kidnaps Children for Money“If I have it my way, you’ll never see your mommy and daddy again.” These cruel words were reportedly uttered to eight-year-old Jaxon Adams by a Missouri doctor working closely with Child Protective Services. While we don’t know if this statement will prove prophetic, the fact is that some children will never see their parents again — or, at least, not for a very long time — because of CPS.

And it has been alleged that many of these youngsters are essentially kidnapped — for money.

ACT child protection laws 'well short' of human rights standards, Human Rights Commissioner says

The ACT's child protection laws "fall well short" of human rights standards, a Legislative Assembly inquiry has heard.

The inquiry was sparked by the ACT government's wrongful removal of five Aboriginal children from their mother in 2013. The case was settled in court early last year, ending the mother's five-year battle to have her children returned to her care.