Pubdate: Wed, 15 Mar 2000
Source: Daily Telegraph (Australia)
Copyright: News Limited 2000
Contact:  http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/
Author: Rachel Morris

LOST LIVES

SEVENTY at-risk children have died in NSW during the past three years 
despite being known to the Department of Community Services, a new report 
has revealed. Even though the department was warned by other agencies or 
family members about the plight of the children, who were living with 
drug-addicted parents, DOCS staff didn't investigate many cases, the Child 
Death Review Team Report found.

The report also found on some occasions, when DOCS decided to investigate 
claims of abuse and neglect, its inquiries were "inadequate".

Community Services Minister Faye Lo Po' last night told The Daily Telegraph 
she has had a "gutful" of watching unfit parents being given a "second 
chance" and has ordered an overhaul of the system including drug testing of 
parents.

NSW Children's Commissioner Gillian Calvert said DOCS and the community at 
large must be "more vigiliant" in recognising children at risk and 
reporting their parents.

The Daily Telegraph last night obtained a breakdown of the ages and gender 
of the children who have died. Their names, listed left, have been changed 
for legal reasons.

Among the cases cited in the damning report were:

Baby John - the child of methadone- addicted parents - who died at four 
months of age.

DOCS staff did not consider hospital staff's information about drug use by 
his mother as an official notification, stating they felt "comfortable" 
leaving the child with his parents.

Baby Caroline: DOCS received a notification from a relative her mother was 
not providing adequate care.

DOCS visited the mother on one occasion at which she denied drug use. The 
concerns of the relative were deemed "malicious" in the departmental 
report. Caroline was found dead at six months of age, wedged between a 
mattress and a lounge.

Baby Dillon: Police told DOCS they found the four-month-old overheated and 
distressed in the back seat of a parked car with his mother, would could 
not be roused because of drug intoxification.

DOCS didn't not take this as a notification and 10 days later Dillon was 
found dead in the back seat of his mother's car.

The report found many notifications were treated as "information only" 
meaning DOCS workers were not required to add the information to the 
database or even investigate the claims.

The report said the failure of DOCS staff to "accept relevant information 
as a notification" was a result of inadequate training or supervision, high 
workloads of DOCS staff or "overidentification" with the plight of the parent.

It also expressed concern about inadequate investigation of potential cases 
of abuse and neglect by drug-addicted parents.

"This often occurred in cases in which the notification was made by a 
relative and deemed to be malicious or ill-founded," the report said.

"Further parent's denial of such allegations were sometimes taken at face 
value without corroborative evidence being sought, even though denial of 
substance abuse is a well-known clinical feature of addiction."

According to the report's investigation of 86 deaths of children of drug 
addicted parents between January 1996 and June 1999, 81 per cent had 
previous involvement with DOCS.

Children of drug and alcohol addicted parents were more likely to die from 
sudden infant death syndrome, non-accidental injury or from suffocation 
from sharing a bed with one of their parents, the report said.

Mrs Lo Po' said authorities had been forced to accept the word of parents 
who had made hollow promises to give up their destructive habits.

She has demanded more information from the child death review team on the 
children who were known to her department.

"I've had a gutful - and I think the community has as well - of watching 
parents who are unfit to be parents, taking their children back and 
wrecking their lives one more time," Mrs Lo Po' told The Daily Telegraph 
last night.
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