A new report hasrevealed vulnerable children who should be protected under the State’s care are dyingbecause of repeated failures in Victoria’s child protection system.
The Commission for Children and Young People’s annual report found premature case closure, poor information gathering, poor access to services and an undermanned system were contributing to the deaths of vulnerable children.
It completed 45 inquiries of children who had died between September 2019 and March this year, who were in or known to child protection or had been in the last 12 months.
The majority of these children were living at home in a dangerous situation when they died.On average, they were the subject of four reports to child protection, with seven per cent involved in more than 10 reports and one child the subject of 17 reports.
In 24 cases the child’s case was still open when they died. Thirty-six of these children and young people known to child protection died during 2022-23, with the number of suicides increasing to the highest number recorded by the Commission since 2016.
The report also revealed the Commission received and reviewed over 10,000 incident reports relating to children in out of home care, involving sexual exploitation, children going missing from care or reported to be in dangerous situations.
There was a 52 per cent increase in reports of ‘poor quality of care’ incidents. The majority of these incident reports came from residential care.
Shadow Minister for Child Protection, Roma Britnell, said: “The report is a damning indictment of an inept government which continues to fail children in its care.
“The Labor Government has failed to keep our most vulnerable children and young people safe and protected. The fact that children known to child protection continue to die in shockingly high numbers is intolerable.”
“The Commission has warned of the failures in the child protection system for years, yet the government has failed to implement many of the Commission’s recommendations to keep children safe.”
