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Brumby's damning out of Home Care Shame

Thursday, July 01, 2010

The Brumby Government is failing ‘damaged’ children in out of home care, according to yet another damning report into child protection in Victoria, Shadow Community Services Minister Mary Wooldridge said today.

The report, by Anglicare Victoria and Wesley Mission Victoria, is considered one of the most detailed studies undertaken in Australia into educational outcomes for children in care.

Disturbingly the report indicates that in spite of previous reports highlighting poor educational outcomes, in Victoria ‘little progress appears to have been made in alleviating significant problems of school disengagement and education failure among children in out of home care’.

“The Brumby Government has an appalling record when it comes to protecting and supporting children in out of home care, and this report highlights more neglect and failure by Labor,” Ms Wooldridge said.

The study identified entrenched mental health problems, placement instability, inadequate teacher skills and time, lack of awareness of education plans and departments failing to work together as contributing to the poor educational outcomes for the children.

The report also found that these failings are resulting in massive educational disparities between children in the general community and those under government care, for whom:

• more than one in five had repeated a year level;
• more than half had experienced a change in school;
• approximately one in five did not attend school on any given day;
• just under a third had wagged school in the past year; and
• more than one in 10 had been suspended in the past 12 months.

“A good education is a fundamental building block for future life success. However the education experience for many children in state care is one of exclusion, disconnection and disadvantage,” said Ms Wooldridge.

“The Brumby Labor Government has known for years about the poor educational outcomes associated with its out of home care system.

“Repeated reports, reviews and case studies all show that the system is failing our most vulnerable children but the Community Services Minister is unable to have any positive effect.

“John Brumbys ongoing lack of leadership and failure to provide appropriate staff, services and resources means he continues to preside over the educational failure of abused kids,” Ms Wooldridge said.