This Children’s Week, while Australia celebrates children’s rights and voices, we must confront a hard truth: too many children in out-of-home care are still denied the basics: safety, stability, education, health care and belonging.
The system is overburdened, under-resourced, and too often reactive rather than protective. Children who have already experienced trauma are moved from placement to placement — sometimes dozens of times. Over a decade ago, I represented a young girl who endured 55 placements. All she wanted was to belong. She is no longer with us. A decade on, the faces change, but the pattern does not.
A daily reality – the lack of basic essentials
- Little or no access to their own funds or bank accounts
- Clothing “allowances” that barely cover basics
- Barriers to buying lunch, catching a bus, or getting school supplies without permission
- Unstable or unsafe placements (including kinship care that cannot meet needs)
- Missed schooling, delayed health care, and revolving doors of workers, homes — even motels
Caseworkers are trying, but aren’t supported. Most are dedicated professionals doing impossible work with overwhelming caseloads and suffocating red tape. We should trust and equip them with training, resources, and discretion.
A tale of two systems. Family law can make protective orders to keep children safe, yet child protection can still authorise contact or placement with people who pose risks — in the name of “maintaining connection.” The right to safety is not negotiable.
What needs to happen now
I call on every State and Territory Minister for Child Protection — across parties — to lead urgent, joined-up reform.
We must:
- Rebuild out-of-home care around each child’s individual rights and needs.
- Give children financial autonomy and direct access to essential resources.
- Guarantee consistent access to education, health and mental health services.
- Support caseworkers with manageable caseloads and real decision-making power.
- Strengthen Children’s Courts for timely, protective, restorative decisions — with national consistency.
- Listen to children first — not as an afterthought, but as the foundation of every policy and decision.
Listening to the voices that matter
When children say they want to belong to a family, we must listen. When they ask for adoption or long-term security, we must act. When they need a bed, a phone, or access to their own money, we must respond with urgency, not bureaucracy.
This Children’s Week, let’s look beyond posters and slogans. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child demands safety, participation, development, and dignity. Australia has the means and the knowledge. What we need now is courage; to listen, to act, and to change. Every child deserves more than survival. Every child deserves to belong.