“I was in ACA from[age] 10 to 12,just in motels,caravan parks … I was put in like $99[a] night rooms,and I’d be like in one room and then the workers would be like 10 rooms down,” one said.
Another reported being sexually assaulted while staying in emergency accommodation.
“[Not] by a worker but just by a person,another person. I was 12,” the witness said.
A third said they had been left “on my own around like full-grown adults on drugs,homeless people,people with mental illnesses,like it was disgusting”.
Although they are meant to be short-term arrangements,in practice,Robinson found,“what has developed is a practice of using ACAs for prolonged placements”,with the average stay about 120 days.
“However,there have also been clear instances where children and young people have been placed in ACAs for more than 600 days,” Robinson wrote.
In one first-person testimony,a 16-year-old boy who had been in emergency accommodation for more than 500 days told the inquiry he felt like a dog being moved from “cage to cage”.
“It feels frustrating,angry,and it just upsets me,” he said.
“[It was] kind of stressful because we had to move a lot.[They] just move me around like a doggy in the pound pretty much,moving cage to cage.”
Robinson said that the “overwhelming weight of the evidence” which had so far been provided to the inquiry suggested that emergency accommodation had “a detrimental impact on children and young people and “supports the proposition that the use of ACAs should cease”.
Robinson said despite efforts to seek “different placement options”,she remained concerned about the use of emergency accommodation.
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“I continue to have significant concerns about where a number of these children and young people have since been placed and the standard of care provided,” she wrote.
The state’s Minister for Families and Communities,Kate Washington,has been critical of the use of emergency accommodation arrangements,tellingTheSydney Morning Herald last year that the for-profit providers were “exploiting a broken system”. But while the government has begunstripping caring responsibilities from private providers who take too long to find permanent placements, she has continued to use them“because then where do those children go?”
However,ahead of the release of the report,Washington said the government has commissioned an urgent review of the foster care system,conceding the government had a “long road to travel to make sure we deliver the best outcomes for young people and taxpayers”.
“This report is heartbreaking;these kids’ stories are harrowing,” she said.
“As the minister and as a mum,I’m horrified to hear that there are children in the child protection system who feel like they’re animals,being moved from cage to cage.”
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