Child Protection Party
Children in the care of the South Australian Government are running away in greater numbers than ever before. The Child protection Party is gravely concerned about the Government’s inability to protect children in their care.
It is of grave concern to the Child Protection Party that the State Government is unable to protect the children in their care. The Advertiser reported that there were 10,000 missing person reports over the past 12 months which equates to 27 per day.
These children are unhappy kids who don’t feel loved and safe in their current environment and are seeking a place where they can feel accepted. It hasn’t been reported how many of these children are asking to be returned to their biological family or what is being done to mitigate the problem.
We accept the fact that many of these children cannot return to their parents because of ongoing safety concerns.
What we are concerned about is the lack of attention paid to parents who have the potential to have their children in their care.
Once children are placed on a long term order the biological parents have less contact and involvement with their children. Perhaps the children would feel more secure if they knew that the relationship with their parents was being fostered by the Department rather than being torn apart.
The Child Protection Party are asking the Department of Child Protection to concentrate on rebuilding fractured relationships with the child’s family including the extended family. All kids need a sense of belonging even when it is not possible to live with their biological parents. All kids need to have relationships that they can rely on in times of stress and uncertainty. For a child to live in a system that exacerbates their already heightened sense of isolation will always have a detrimental effect on children and therefore cause them to seek the attention they need in places that will be harmful.
Governments have to own the damage they are causing and repair it before more lives of innocent children are destroyed.
