Dea Delaney-Thiele says programs are making a difference but should be run by Aboriginal health sector

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

If anybody knows how to navigate the New South Wales child protection system, it is Dea Delaney-Thiele.

For many years, Delaney-Thiele was the director of NSW/ACT services at Ozchild, one of the state’s biggest out-of-home-care (OOHC) providers.

But when the Department of Family and Community Services (Facs) moved – “before we could even blink” – to take two young relatives into care, it took every ounce of her patience and skill to negotiate their return.

“At the time when they were removed, they were shuffled between four or five different carers in the space of about six weeks,” she said.

“It’s horrific. Horrific, even though we worked the system to our advantage to get the kids back. I feel for the families that don’t have that knowledge of how to navigate the system.”



It took her six weeks.

Today, Delaney-Thiele is an associate professor at UNSW, holds a masters in public health, and is the chief executive of the Bullinah Aboriginal health corporation on the NSW north coast.

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“At the time, I was critical of Facs because they gave families no options, they were just moving them into out-of-home-care at great rates.”

Facs’ record of removing Aboriginal children into OOHC came under under intense scrutiny this week with the release of the long-withheld Tune report, a scathing assessment of what former senior public servant David Tune described as a crisis-driven, inefficient and unsustainable system.

The report was delivered in 2016 but the NSW government refused to release it until this week. It was one of three documents the opposition and minor parties have repeatedly fought to make public, pushing the Berejiklian government to the edge of a constitutional crisis.

Quick guide Main findings of the Tune report Show Hide • The number of children in out-of-home care has doubled in 10 years due to increases in factors driving demand, like mental health issues, as well as a lack of investment in vulnerable families’ needs before they enter OOHC • The cost of providing OOHC is growing, with the expanding NGO sector costing significantly more than the government sector • The government spends a lot on OOHC but it is not well-targeted and there is still significant unmet demand and inefficiency: “Overall, the system is ineffective and unsustainable” • Millions of dollars' worth of programs are delivered in agency silos and are not evaluated • Outcomes are particularly poor for Aboriginal children and families, who are the highest growing population in OOHC. The number of Aboriginal children being restored to their families has dropped significantly • Current programs are not aligned with what children and families need • Expenditure is crisis-driven, rather than going towards early intervention or family preservation • “The system is failing to improve the long term outcomes for children and to arrest the devastating cycles of intergenerational abuse and neglect” • A new entity, a NSW family investment commission, is needed to drive and implement personalised packages for vulnerable children and families



On ABC radio on Thursday morning, the minister for family and community services, Pru Goward, said the government “probably should have” released the Tune report into child protection earlier. It was commissioned by the cabinet, so the government was following the “time-honoured Westminster tradition” of respecting cabinet confidentiality, she said.

“But the really good news is now that it’s out there, you can see we have implemented Tune’s recommendations and we are doing better than he predicted we would do if we followed his recommendations.”

Guardian Australia has seen government estimates for 2017-18. Based on partial year data extracted on 5 June, 886 fewer children were taken into care compared with last year. But Aboriginal children are a higher percentage of the intake. For this year, 38.4% of children taken into care were Aboriginal, and for the previous year the figure stood at 36.3%.

Facs has invested $90.5m over four years in two early intervention programs to help families before they reach breaking point.



The programs, developed by the New York Foundling society which is involved in rolling them out in NSW, have helped reduce the number of children in out-of-home-care in New York and, according to Delaney-Thiele, the signs are that they are working here too.

“Had they been available back when we were going through it, had we been given the option to do something like this, we would’ve jumped at it,” she said.

“We basically had no options whatsoever. It’s important that Facs case workers get a handle on these models as an intervention, before they remove children.”

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From August 2017 to February 2018, six teams have been working on family therapy programs in Newcastle, western and south-western Sydney, supporting about 150 children and their families, 50 of whom are Aboriginal. In that time, Delaney-Thiele says, not one child has been removed.

“I think Facs has gone out on a limb, they’ve got funding from cabinet, and if they can’t actually show there’s been some outcomes for families, they won’t get another stab at it. Regardless of what’s happened in the past, here we are now, at a point in time where we can actually make a difference with these models.”



Even so, Delaney-Thiele would like to see the government transfer responsibility for these programs to the Aboriginal health sector, because “they’re clinical health interventions”.

Aboriginal medical services already work in communities, she said. They keep comprehensive records of families and their needs, and they offer a range of clinical support services. Most importantly, they are Aboriginal-led.

Self-determination is at the heart of changes Aboriginal peak organisations want to make to the child protection system.

The Aboriginal Child, Family and Community Care State Secretariat (AbSec) told Guardian Australia it wanted NSW to appoint an Aboriginal child and family commissioner.

Its chief executive, Tim Ireland, said a commissioner could direct investment in child and family support services, set up a statewide data system to measure needs and effects, and provide early intervention programs for Aboriginal families.

“We’re not suggesting an Aboriginal child and families commissioner would take over the role of Facs,” he said.

“What we’re saying is a commission system would work with communities, be Aboriginal led and Aboriginal designed, to offer the kind of support families need across the whole continuum, from early intervention through to foster care.

“It is not fair that we should have such little say in a system which so heavily affects our people.”



More than 7% of Aboriginal children are in out-of-home care, compared with 1% of all children and young people in NSW.

“We see the commissioner as playing a key role in monitoring the statutory functions of Facs, and having oversight of our own data, to make informed decisions.



“To us it’s about support, services and accountability, not duplicating a mainstream approach, but realising self-determination for our communities.”

But this week, Goward rejected those calls.

“We’re not creating a separate system for Aboriginal children. This is core business for us,” she said.

“This is Australia and we are all in this together. This is core for all of us. It needs to remain in the mainstream, as part of mainstream responsibility.”

Ireland said it was baffling to be rejected “out of hand”.

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The call for self-determination is also happening in other states and territories. Victoria appointed its first Aboriginal children’s commissioner in 2013.

Nationally, Aboriginal chid care organisations said they wanted to see a Closing the Gap target for reducing the number of Aboriginal children being removed from their families and communities.

In New Zealand and Canada, similar conversations are being had. Governments in both countries are exploring ways to transfer authority for the design and delivery of programs for Indigenous children and families to Indigenous communities and organisations.

Last week, the Métis Nation and the province of British Columbia signed an agreement to “significantly reduce the number of Métis children and youth in government care”, leading to the eventual legislative transfer of authority to the Metis nation.

This week in NSW, with attention on a malfunctioning child protection system, there’s a chance to look at alternatives, Ireland told Guardian Australia.

“I think there is an opportunity to have a public conversation about it and really ask the question, why not?”

