How does sexual harm or exploitation occur?

1 Introduction:

The Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency has been providing a range of services to vulnerable Aboriginal children, families and community members since the late 1970s. We have been running two residential care units for over 25 years. These units were initially run as “family group homes” with a “cottage parent” model of service delivery. In 2010 VACCA changed its model of service to a rostered staff model. The units whilst based in the northern division are state-wide. One unit is funded as a therapeutic care unit. Currently the units are designated for children under 12, however VACCA has cared for adolescents in residential care in the past.

There is acknowledgement that children who are referred to residential care exhibit more complex and challenging behaviours, engage in high-risk behaviour, are vulnerable to all forms of exploitation and have usually had multiple failed placement experiences. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people make up about 18% of the population of children and young people in residential care. VACCA is committed to ensuring the services we provide to children in out of home care services are safe and not subject to any abuse, including sexual abuse. We are committed to the highest levels of screening to ensure adults who care for our children are safe but we know that ensuring a child’s safety requires more than initial screening processes.

Ensuring our staff are well versed in child development; indicators of sexual abuse; targeting and grooming behaviours of perpetrators and importantly creating an environment where children feel proud of their Aboriginality and that what they have to say matters all contribute to providing a safe Out of Home Care service for our children.

Aboriginal children are particularly vulnerable due to the impact of past policies and practices which leave many families unable to offer the protection their children need. This results in the over representation of our children in care, especially in residential care.

There are systemic issues that go beyond individual agencies that contribute to children in residential care experiencing sexual abuse or exploitation that need to be addressed to ensure the safety of these vulnerable children. These will be briefly explored further in this submission.

However, at the outset it is important to recognize that some children in

residential care have flourished and this system of care, if well resourced,

therapeutic in focus, with appropriate staff and within the right policy context,

has a place to play in the care options available to children. For some children in

a well-functioning residential therapeutic care setting, it provides an emotional

space to recover and develop skills and approaches that will help them into the

future. For some of these children more intense relationships are fraught and

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the rostered staff model provides them with the opportunities to develop relationships at the level and pace that is comfortable for them and provides a platform for more intense relationships in the future.

How does sexual harm or exploitation occur?

1. Why are children and young people in residential care at increased risk of sexual harm or sexual exploitation compared to other types of out-of-home-care?

History of abuse and neglect and placement history

Children and young people in residential care frequently have backgrounds of significant abuse and neglect, and are traumatised by their experiences. This can leave them extremely vulnerable to adults who seek to exploit them. These young people may be seeking friendship, love, belonging and acceptance in response to their experiences of rejection, judgement and disconnection from their family, community and culture.

Young people in residential care are often unable or unwilling to develop an emotional connection to their placement or their carers which of itself increase their vulnerability to sexual exploitation. This is understandable given their trauma history which is often compounded by multiple placement changes.

Rostered staffing model suits some children but does not on the whole foster deep trusting relationships with adults. Many of these children have been in the care of too many strangers, being rejected by too many adults to allow them to see their residential carers as adults who can guide them and have a role in their protection.

Having limited emotional connection to the placement makes it very difficult for the staff to effectively support these young people and keep them safe.

Some form of connection is necessary for all of us. The potential is high for young people in residential care to be exploited by sex offenders who appear to be more trustworthy and dependable than the system has been.

Young people with significant trauma histories may also be ‘just trying to survive’ and may therefore look for adults with financial resources or promises of material goods. Many paedophiles are aware of these vulnerabilities and will deliberately target young people in the care system.

Young people in care at times will form friendships with other young people in care as they may feel marginalised from other peers and stigmatised. They are more likely to have high risk behaviours such as running away and meet at public places such as train stations. Sex offenders often seek out these places as they know adults will be unlikely to intervene or observe their activities. In extreme examples young people may be drawn to prostitution. In order to prosper, children need stability and therefore need to know where and with whom they are going to live in the short, medium and long term.

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Poor System Assessment and Placement Matching

Many children are placed in residential care with residential care providers having limited detailed knowledge: of their history, the challenges they present, effective intervention strategies to guide placement approaches. Given the complex history of many of these children, this lack of assessment significantly increases risk of sexual exploitation. Furthermore, the placement demands and the limited matching that occurs increases the risk also of client to client sexual abuse.

Social media

It is becoming increasingly evident that social media can increase these young people’s risk of sexual exploitation. The use of mobile phones and web based technology is increasingly becoming used by sexual predators. Given the circumstances of children in care, they become especially vulnerable.

2. To your knowledge, what are the most common examples of sexual abuse or sexual exploitation that have occurred for the children and young people placed in residential care?

The most common examples include children and young people being targeted by sexual predators outside the residential unit, and abuse by peers within and outside the unit. As stated in question one, young people living in residential care often have significant trauma backgrounds and can be aggressive and assaultive of each other, including sexual assault. This can be exacerbated by drug use. For some children sexualized contact with their peers or siblings is a means of gaining comfort and care in ways that they can control and understand.

Placement demands means the matching of young people is rarely able to occur. This can mean those with known perpetrating behaviours being placed together (not wise unless it’s a specialized unit) or perpetrators being placed with either known victims of sexual assault or simply vulnerable children (a recipe for disaster).

Sexual predators are able to very successfully influence young people to groom other young people into the “ring” and for some young people, if it means the sexual abuse will end for them, by bringing in other (generally younger) children and young people, then to survive they will do this.

3. What are the main routes or pathways through which children and young people have become victims of sexual abuse or sexual exploitation following their placement in residential care?

If young people are engaged in their placement and have a key worker, they are more likely to accept guidance, support and boundaries from those caring for them, and are therefore less vulnerable to negative outside influences.

Sadly, by the time a young person is placed in residential care, they can feel

worthless and so let down by the system that is supposed to protect them, that

they give up, stop trying and in fact rebel against anything that vaguely

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resembles authority. This can lead them to be easily exploited by both other young people and sexual predators, further compounding the trauma they already carry.

Unfortunately in some cases staff has been identified as the abusers of children and young people in residential care. It is critical that rigorous systems are in place to ensure adequate pre-screening of staff and that this is regularly reviewed. The Working with Children Check system, introduced in Victoria in 2006, has had a significant impact on the sector and is an essential tool to minimize opportunities for people who have harmed children in the past to be employed in child related jobs. The carer register is also critical in allowing for tracking of staff where concerns have been substantiated to prevent them moving from agency to agency.

To both care and protect children who have been/or are being sexually abused requires skilled staff who are aware of the triggers, aware of the level of vigilance that is required and skilled in developing responses to eliminate and reduce children putting themselves at risk. Yet there is insufficient investment in staff training that regular looks at these issues and in program guidelines that should guide all residential care.

All residential care providers struggle to varying degrees to have consistent and skilled staff ‘on the floor’. At times the use of casual or agency staff can also play its part as children are less likely to know the children and take preventative measures when concerns are escalating.

The DHS Quality of Care (QoC) process allows for a level of accountability and, ideally, enables swift collaborative investigation and decision making regarding staff who may be harming children. However this relies on disclosures by children and young people, fellow staff or supervisors to be successful and therefore at times is not able to protect children. Also at times QoC, with its focus on writing incident reports and its procedural nature, deflects managers from a focus on the child to compliance with recording requirements.

Elimination of sexual exploitation of children in our care is often a long term process involving a clear group of professionals and at times family members working together with very clear agreed upon responses. It requires longer term intervention which is contra indicated by the incident management approach that is prevalent in the system.

What are the responses for children and young people?

4. What is the standard response to an incident of sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of a child or young person residing in residential care?

The standard response would be to assess the immediate safety of the

child or young person and take action to ensure they are safe. This can

include separating the child from others, picking the child up from an

unsafe location, seeking medical attention, seeking a specialist sexual

assault or rape crisis service, contacting the Police etc. A Critical Incident

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report would be completed outlining the nature of the incident and the actions taken to protect the child or young person immediately and in the future. The child or young person’s parent or guardian would be informed as would relevant professionals and planning would occur to mitigate against future harm. It is always better to prevent incidents and also to embed a culture where young people feel empowered to tell a trusted adult if they are not feeling safe. Care meetings are also routinely part of the approach that is taken and play a key role in developing strategies to lessen the likelihood of the abuse occurring or in developing plans once the abuse has occurred.

Can you offer any comments about the adequacy of the response and associated service systems? Is there consistency in the response? If not, what are the factors that result in variability?

Residential care workers and managers can be hampered in their management of incidents for many reasons. Most units (RP2) are poorly funded and resourced. For example, it is not uncommon to have little or no capacity to allow one staff member to leave the unit and search for or pick up a young person when there are other young people in the unit requiring care and supervision Furthermore, the units may have up to four children with very challenging behaviours, including being sexually exploited by outside adults or other residents. RP2 funding simply does not allow sufficient supervision of the children within the units. Indeed it cannot guarantee minimal safety in these circumstances.

The system is slow to respond to particular needs of children so the development of alternative options take a long time to put in place. For example, children may be placed on long waiting lists for specialized services. Children are placed for months and years in contingency units . This means it is very difficult to attract and retain a regular group of staff who know the child and have a commitment to them.

If additional funding is required it may require the agreement of 3 DHS Directors: the Director of CP, the Director of COSI and the Local Area Director. All of which takes time.

There is a lack of consistent approach across the DHS regions. The response to incidents by Police can be very mixed, ie some individual Police Officers find dealing with young people who are displaying very challenging behaviours difficult, especially if they are frequent absconders from placement.

Police can also struggle to identify and charge adult offenders due to the reluctance of young people to talk to Police, give information or follow through on interviews. Also adult sex offenders can have very sophisticated techniques for ensuring their victims do not disclose their activities.

It can be very difficult accessing the right services and supports to

address the young person’s needs, especially their mental health needs

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as the health system does not historically respond well to this children in care.

5. How can children and young people be better protected from sexual harm or sexual exploitation in residential care?

Children will not be protected adequately until we have a system wide approach.

At the minimum this requires:

“RP3 plus” funding level

Policy and procedural practices that focus on dealing with treatment and abuse management in a consistent manner with clear underpinning values and theoretical knowledge

Evidence based trauma informed approachesCulturally responsive service provision

Whole of government response that is consistent and includes Police, DEECD, Health and DHS

Immediate access to specialized services for the children Flexible funding packages

Adequate resourcing at levels that allow for supervision of children who present with very challenging behaviours

Staff who are appropriately trained and have opportunities to continue their professional development

Staff paid at levels that provide incentives to stay in the system (Currently house cleaners are paid at similar or better levels than residential care staff)

The importance of the quality of the care relationship has been outlined above. A key aspect of protecting a child or young person from sexual harm is to provide a culturally safe, secure and therapeutic (ie working towards healing) environment where the young person is able to make good choices for themselves with support. This can lead to a reduction in risk taking behaviours, increased trust, healing from abuse, greater connection to culture (which is protective in itself) and a greater likelihood that the young person will tell someone if they are harmed and enable appropriate services to be actioned.

Culture is a significant variable in establishing a sense of safety for Aboriginal people. For,

“When culture becomes the means for building resilience and self-determination becomes the process of

engagement with Aboriginal communities, service

provision for Aboriginal children and young people is likely to lead to improved outcomes for children, young people and their families.” (Bamblett, 2006)

Clearly preventing children from entering OOHC would have to be the most

effective strategy to keeping children safe. Aboriginal children in Victoria are

significantly over represented in OOHC and remain in OOHC for longer than their

non-Aboriginal counterparts. To this end, VACCA would like to see more funding

being made available for early intervention/prevention services to assist

Aboriginal families to care for their children safely. We know that the majority of

Aboriginal children who come into care have an intergenerational history of

removal and issues of poverty and neglect remain the major reasons for child

protection intervention with Aboriginal families. Of concern is the continual

increase of Aboriginal children entering the OOHC system. Over the last nine

years, in Victoria, the number of Aboriginal children entering care has increased

by 102.8% compared with the non-Aboriginal increase of only 44.3%.

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Additional focus and support for families to enable them to provide a safe environment and have their children reunified as soon as possible is a priority.

It is of significant concern to VACCA that Aboriginal children are being removed from their families at greater rates than the period referred to as the Stolen Generations. In fact at current levels, the rate of removal in Victoria exceeds levels seen at any time since white settlement. (Koorie Kids: Growing Strong In Their Culture). There is a need to develop a comprehensive culturally informed assessment and therapeutic treatment approach to assist Aboriginal young people who have been victims of sexual abuse. A culturally informed approach to those who have engaged in sexually abusive behaviours is also required to ensure they have the best chance at disengaging from those behaviours and resolving the traumas that contributed to the development of these behaviours so they can grow up contributing in meaningful way within their community.

6. How adequately are the health needs, education, community and family connections of children and young people met in residential care?

Children and young people in residential care are disadvantaged in all these areas. The many do not attend school or employment. It is our experience that some schools do not manage difficult behaviours well, and at times attach a stigma to children in out of home care.. In the areas of health and education, there are some very helpful initiatives that aim to address these issues including DHS Pathways to Good Health, Koorie Education Officers, the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (including Koorie Kids), and the RCH Wadja Clinic. The CIRC education worker plays a key role in supporting many of the children who do not attend school. It is an ongoing concern that schools do not see OOHC children as a priority and deem it acceptable for these children to often have only a few hours a week at school.

In relation to family connections, VACCA work hard to maintain connection to family for all children and young people in out of home care, including residential care, and have had many positive outcomes.

Over the years it has become very clear to VACCA that Child Protection often make limited attempts to both engage families and reunite children with their parents. A number of these children end up in residential care whereas if work had been undertaken at placement commencement some children would not have been placed in residential care. Programs such as Stronger Families play a pivotal role in reducing the number of children entering the OOHC system.

Furthermore, a number of Aboriginal children are not been appropriately identified at notification and some years into their placement with mainstream services it becomes clear that the child is Aboriginal.

More broadly there is a disconnect between family services, family

violence and adult services with the OOHC system which significantly

contributes to children being disconnected from the families and not

reunited home.

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VACCA is very concerned at the number of Aboriginal children placed in mainstream services where there is insufficient focus on their cultural and community connections and on their identity as Aboriginal children.

The DHS stability report indicates very poor compliance with CSPs and AFLDMs which are key family and cultural connectors.

Are there ways these connections and needs could be better addressed or improved for children and young people in residential care?

The ‘Koorie Kids: Growing Strong in their Culture’ points the way forward in terms of improving overall the outcomes for Aboriginal children in care. To highlight a few key points in the submission: Aboriginal children should be directly managed by Aboriginal services that understand the importance of these connections and foster them as part of normal business. Also the full implementation of section 18 we believe significantly improve outcomes for all Aboriginal children.

Adherence to the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle as prescribed in s.13 of the CYFA, 2005 remains very inconsistent and Child Protection need continual reminders of its importance and significance.

In mainstream services, there could be a much greater emphasis on family connections for Aboriginal children and young people. There seems to be a culture of maintaining a focus on the young person and neglecting to do the work involved in reconnecting family which is complex and demanding.

Some mainstream residential care providers have a good understanding of the needs of Aboriginal young people in their care and will ask for assistance and advice from ACCOs. Many however do not make attempts to understand the young person’s cultural needs, including cultural connectedness and connectedness to family and do not provide a culturally safe environment, exacerbating the young person’s sense of alienation and dissatisfaction.

7. What are the policies and common practices in residential units regarding the children and young persons' use of mobile phones, internet, social media and technology?

VACCA has a cyber safety policy which outlines the safe use of PCs and other

devices and includes blocks on websites and recommendations regarding

Case example: In 2013, four children in VACCAs residential care program were reunited with two other

siblings in foster care and went home to extended family. VACCAs residential care and foster care staff

worked very hard to have this happened which included paying rent in advance for the carers. What

was of concern in this situation was that the aunty and uncle came down from Qld in June and were

ready to assume care of the children by late June. Due DHSs inability to negotiate between Child

Protection and the Placement Co-ordination Unit, where components of the funding for the tailored

care package would come from, the children remained in care until 31

October 2013.

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supervision while on line. It is very difficult, however, to monitor all usage as some young people are skilled at breaking security blocks etc. It is VACCAs view that further sector wide policy approaches and practices are required.

8. What form of sexual health education and relationship education is provided to children and young people in residential care, if any? Who provides this education and are their skills, training, supervision and support adequate to perform this role? How formalized is the delivery /content /approach/evaluation?

Children and young people in VACCA’s residential care program are provided with sexual health education and relationship education in various ways. Their key same sex workers would encourage discuss ions of men’s and women’s business with assistance from appropriate family members who would give advice as to the timing and content that should be provided. The young people are linked in to VAHS for more formal education, but VAHS also encourage family members to be involved. Staff receive supervision and training but again more could be done sector wide.

9. How does this education integrate with what is provided to children and young people in their formal education at school, for those children and young people who attend school?

VACCA has an educational officer who works exclusively with the children in VACCA residential care. It is her role to work with the school and staff to facilitate a holistic approach which takes into account the children’s cultural needs. However, it is often difficult to ensure an integrated approach with the educational system. It is of significant concern that many children in OOHC do not access school or are only attending for a few hours per week. It seems that DEECD does not sufficiently invest in supporting schools to ensure that children in OOHC are attending full time schooling as is their right.

What would make a difference?

What changes would be most helpful in preventing children and young people in residential care becoming a victim of sexual abuse or sexual exploitation and in helping them to escape from it?

A number of systems improvements were highlighted earlier in the

submission. Also, young people need to feel strong in their identity and

their culture. It is now accepted that a child who is strong in their cultural

identity is more likely to have a voice. If we accept that one of the principles of

creating safety for a child is to ensure their voice is heard and that they

actively participate in the services provided; then it is logical that the child who

is strong in their identity will be better able to express themselves and

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participate in communicating when they feel safe and importantly when they don’t feel safe.

The new Victorian legislation enabling Police to act when adults who are deemed to be “grooming” young people has been helpful, however more work needs to be done in facilitating systemic changes to the legal system to ensure better support for victims and encourage greater reporting of sexual assault overall. It would be beneficial for staff to receive comprehensive and ongoing training in child sexual abuse, including identifying signs that someone may have been abused, dealing with disclosures and partial disclosures and developing an understanding of how perpetrators choose and groom victims.

There should be increased education around the use of Intervention Orders, particularly taking out Intervention Orders on behalf of a child, and strengthening their effectiveness.

10. Do staff who care for and work with these children and young people have adequate skills, training, supervision and support to respond to, manage and prevent children and young people in residential care from being exposed to or becoming a victim of sexual abuse or sexual exploitation? Are there any improvements that could be made in this area?

Understanding sexual abuse and dealing with young people who have been abused requires considerable skill. The persistence, determination and opportunistic nature of sex offenders is often underestimated and poorly understood, and requires staff to receive specialized training which is regularly updated. Staff also needs to be supported by sophisticated and robust debriefing systems within their organisation, as the nature of what they hear and see is confronting and challenging.

11. How well do the service systems presently work together to prevent, respond to and support children and young people who have been a victim of sexual abuse or sexual exploitation in residential care? Are there ways the service systems could work differently to improve outcomes for these children?

This can be variable depending on the age of the child, the area in which they reside, and pre-existing inter-agency relationships.

RCH Gatehouse Centre, the Centre Against Sexual Assault and Children’s Protection Society all have strong child focused responses but these types of services are less accessible in rural areas, where there is more dependence on local hospitals which are not always equipped to deal with these issues and provide a swift forensic response.

Furthermore, it is often difficult to quickly activate the appropriate services,

there could be, for example, waiting lists for counselling services.

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12. Any other matters or issues that you feel the Commission should-consider in its Inquiry?

Rights perspective

Aboriginal children and young people have a right to grow up in the care of their family where they develop positive self-esteem, resilience and pride. VACCA would argue that Aboriginal children and young people in mainstream residential care have significant disadvantages and increased vulnerability to all forms of abuse due to lack of connection to their culture. It is well documented that growing up in care has particu lar impacts on Aboriginal young people and many Aboriginal adults who experienced the care system testify that this essentially robbed them of their culture and the protections it provides such as strong identity, pride and robustness.

VACCA would assert that Aboriginal children and young people who require out of home care should receive that service within an Aboriginal agency.

Cultural Support Plans (CSPs)

There is a requirement that each Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child in out of home care has a Cultural Support Plan. Promoting a child's connectedness to their culture requires specific strategies to connect and strengthen the child’s ties to extended family and the community they belong to, as each community is different. Ongoing compliance with completing these plans has been variable and problematic. They are complex documents that take time to complete and there is a lack of understanding by mainstream services about their significance, which leads to the plans being poorly completed or not completed at all. Furthermore the plans are not child friendly and need to be re developed to meet the needs of children and support carers.

There needs to be a greater focus on CSPs across the sector with a concurrent training strategy.

Inadequacy of the current funding models

It is well documented by DHS and the CSO sector that the current residential care funding model is inadequate in terms of providing a realistic level of service to children with even the most basic needs. For significant portions of time each day, this only provides for one staff with three to four children. As indicated the children in the unit require a sophisticated and comprehensive service including attention to:

Safety

Connection to family

Connection to school and community Connection to culture

Optimal physical and mental health

Optimal social and emotional development.

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In order to achieve these outcomes, children need to not only be adequately supervised, but active work needs to occur ensure their best interests are being maintained at all times.

Respite care

Many children who reside in residential care have experienced complex trauma which manifests itself in extremely challenging behaviours and limited ability to form sustainable meaningful relationships. For these children home base care options are often not successful. However, it is important that all children experience life in family settings and respite care could be used as a bridge between home settings and residential care.

Residential care is an expensive model of care which is not currently meeting the needs of children and young people. Consideration needs to be given to:

Introducing flexible models of care

Expanding flexible funding packages which aslso support cultural activities such as return to country activities

Professionalism of foster care to enable carers to attract a living wage (to support young people with complex behaviours)

Increased use of Aboriginal Family Led Decision making to identify carers early on

Increased use of (and resourcing for) kinship placements.

Expansion of Adolescent Community Placement Programs Close alignment of family services with OOHC

Conversion of all residential care into therapeutic care

Access to cultural workers for all Aboriginal children in residential care The Voice of the Child

It is important that there are mechanisms in place of hear the voice and ideas of the children in residential care. VACCA has weekly yarning meetings with the children to ensure their voice is heard.

Muriel Bamblett

Chief Executive Officer