AUSTRALIA
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The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has issued its fourth discussion paper. It concerns procedures to minimize abuse in the out-of-home care sector. This mostly covers children who previously would have been placed in the old Children’s Homes. The paper calls for submissions on how to achieve this, with a deadline of November 8th 2013
The bulk of submissions are likely to come from the care-provider organisations, which are mostly church-based. It would also be expected that the support organisations which have benefited from very generous federal government grants will also prepare submissions. It is much less likely that people who have gone through the system will put in a submission, because of lack of resources, residual trauma or inability to adequately express their opinions.
It would be nice if the commission were to give the latter category of people real assistance in this regard.
Commission chief executive Janette Dines said areas of interest included foster care, relative or kinship care, family group homes, residential care and independent living. Dines is quoted as saying that “The royal commission is interested in strategies that will keep children in care safe from sexual abuse and in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of current models of oversight of out-of-home care practices.”
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