Last night LovingMyKids and I did a mass mail-out to an extremely long list of email addresses which we had been given from Anonymums via Facebook (Anonymums is also on MySpace for those who want to add her).
Although trying to work out what to say to these people was a challenge when my mind was already fried from everything that I had already been doing... I opted for a missive that showed we had something to say - without raving on and on about
all the issues.
I know that there is
a lot more going on than what I wrote about, but if you write too much, it doesn't get read.
The list of email addresses will be retained for future reference... I had the idea that keeping these people "up to date" with the goings on of the cause might be a handy thing to do.
Below is the email they were all sent...
The Plight of Australian Families
In recent times, particularly since 2006, too many average Australian families have been torn asunder by the simple declaration (decision, assumption, guess) that the child or children from those families are “at risk”. This has resulted in tens of thousands of children from perfectly normal families being torn from their homes and placed into foster care situations with complete strangers.
Every child in every home is “at risk” of something. They are at risk of having their foot trodden on in the kitchen. They are at risk of falling of their bicycle. They are at risk of falling out of their bed at night. There is always a risk of something.
According to the official government web site for the Department of Child Safety in Queensland, the true reason behind this Department being created was to be as follows…
“…
dedicated exclusively to protecting the rights of Queensland children, particularly those in foster care.”
This excerpt is taken from a recommendation made by the Crime and Misconduct Commission in January 2004 after an inquiry into multiple deaths of children in foster homes.
The sad truth of the matter, the fact of the matter, is that foster care homes are outsourced to agencies and organizations who employ people in the role of being a foster carer. Organizations and agencies such as Direct Care Resources, Pathways and Pro Care (just to name a few). In doing this, the Department of Child Safety (not just in Queensland, but Australia wide) fob the responsibility of “protecting the rights” of children off onto somebody else and in all honest case workers have absolutely no idea what is occurring in the foster homes in regard to these children… They simply assume that foster carers are taking responsible care of the children… Case workers do not check up on the welfare of these children – they just let them go.
If something should happen to a child who has been placed in an outsourced foster home, the Department of Child Safety has themselves a nice scapegoat to lay the blame on and their hands are nicely washed of the situation.
In the meantime, the biological parents of these children are beside themselves jumping through Departmental hoops, while the Department raises the bar higher and higher, just to try and win back custody of their children. The majority (yes, majority) of these children should never have been removed from their home in the first place.
More and more Australian parents are coming out of the woodwork in regard to their circumstances and the plight of their families when it comes to the Department of Child Safety. The family names and the names of the children vary, but the “cases” are continuously repetitive. Families are losing custody of their children for the same things over and over. One solicitor recently stood up in Court for a family in Queensland and declared that this is the “new stolen generation”. No truer words have been spoken.
Instead of helping Australian parents with any issues that they may have so that they may better care for their children in a healthy environment, the Department of Child Safety opts to remove the child from the family home then take a minimum of two years of intervention and assessment before even considering the return of the children.
During this time, the children forced into foster homes with strangers develop antisocial behaviours, developmental delays, inner health issues and numerous other mental and physical problems. All of which impact on the Australian health system and therefore cause the Australian tax payer to dip into his pocket to support the medical needs of these children which could have been avoided by a proper, more reliable Child Protection system.
I would like to draw your attention to a brand new parent advocacy group and ask that you visit this web site
www.power4parents.org and have a very good look at exactly what is going on with Australian families today.
Yours sincerely,
