Tasmania has averaged one allegation of child sexual abuse per week for eight years in the out of home care system, but the true figure is likely to be significantly higher due to underreporting.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
From 2013 to 2021, there were 439 allegations of child abuse involving 299 individual children, of whom 122 were Aboriginal and 120 were children with a disability.
The figures accounted for one-in-36 children in the state's out of home care system.
The data was provided during the Commission of Inquiry into government responses to child sexual abuse allegations, which is this week focusing on children under the guardianship of the secretary of Communities Tasmania.
The care includes foster, kinship, residential, sibling group and therapeutic, now covering more than 1000 children.
Counsel assisting Rachel Ellyard said there had been nine reports into the system since 2011, but despite governments accepting most recommendations, gaps were still occurring.
"Many of the themes emerging from them are the same themes that are going to emerge this week," she said.
"Lack of support for carers, poor recruitment practices, insufficient training and support, inappropriate placements, children being permitted to live away from placement, inadequate monitoring of children and out of home care providers including of their funding arrangements.
"Poor record keeping, poor information sharing, the lack of accreditation, registration and licensing systems for out of home care providers, poor support for children's own participation in decision-making process, and poor compliance with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander placement principle."
Victim-survivors and those who work in, and oversee, the system will given evidence throughout the week.
On Tuesday, the first victim-survivor detailed how Child and Youth Services failed to keep her safe from a predatory family member while she was living in foster care.
'Oh, is that all?' Victim's account downplayed multiple times
Young girls were kept in a foster home despite Children and Youth Services being aware of abuse allegations regarding a family member.
The Commission of Inquiry heard evidence from 'Faye', who was abused in the home - which only took in females - in the 1990s.
She was placed with the foster family with her sister, which started well, until an adult male relative moved in. He had been fired from his job due to allegations of having a relationship with an underage child.
CYS visited and asked the girls if they were comfortable in the home, but did not disclose to them allegations against the relative.
He then groomed the sisters and sexually abused Faye in a bedroom she shared with her sister.
Commission of Inquiry into child sexual abuse in Tasmania:
- Girl first faced abusive teacher, then James Griffin at LGH
- Mother's LGH nurse complaint ignored, daughter left 'screaming'
- Tasmania to bring in US-style therapy for at-risk youth
- How a 'confusing' web of integrity bodies could harm oversight in Tasmania
- Tasmanian children put back in abusive homes due to system failures
- 'Cultures of hate': gender diverse child accosted in school
- Anatomy of a failure: how teacher abuse allegations were ignored
- Four schools raise concerns about relief teacher's conduct, no action taken
- Abuse victims lose out over government's 'aggressive' approach
She confronted him but some family members treated it like a "big joke". It took three conversations with the family about the conduct before CYS was called to the home, and Faye was moved elsewhere.
Yet her belongings remained in the home, much of which was never returned to her.
Faye said she never received counselling support from CYS.
She was contacted by police in the 2000s after four or five other girls had come forwarded regarding allegations against the family member. She provided a statement, but found the process "awful" and intimidating, including receiving a response of, "oh, is that all?" in relation to one disclosure.
Faye was not offered counselling or support, then the crown prosecutor was changed the week before the trial, affecting the relationships victims had formed.
The trial did not result in a conviction, and no follow-up was provided to alleged victims.
Faye said more children could have been protected had CYS acted upon allegations sooner.
"Children and Youth Services should have done better. They had a clear red flag, yet they kept us in a home," she said.
"If there is any risk to a vulnerable child, that child should be removed from the environment.
"They had the opportunity to protect me, but they didn't. They also failed to visit us more frequently, which they said they would.
"If they had have followed up, I may have disclosed the abuse earlier."
Child safety officer caseloads increasing due to staff shortages
There are between 26 and 30 child safety officer vacancies in Communities Tasmania creating significant caseload issues, the Commission of Inquiry heard.
Child and Family Services executive director Claire Lovell said it was difficult to find workers in Tasmania to fill the role, particularly given competition with other agencies looking for similar staff.
"The average caseload for the child safety officers should be around 15 children each, but what we find is that the more vacancies we have ... that number then increases," she said.
IN OTHER NEWS:
The officers take a key role in supporting a child's transition from removal, to placement, and then settling, but staffing issues are presenting a challenge.
"We are unable to fill all of our vacancies through our recruitment strategies, so we really are having a workforce planning problem that's persisted for some time now, despite different strategies being used to try and fill that workforce, it's not successful," Ms Lovell said.
"We don't have enough applicants who we're able to appoint to these positions."
Child safety officers are regularly promoted to fill more senior vacancies in the department, creating staff shortages further down the chain that cannot be filled.
Ms Lovell said demand for services was increasing, but they were being squeezed from multiple directions.
"I know that we struggle to keep up with reasonable community expectation around the services that we deliver and the safety of quality of those services," she said.
"It's not that we're not progressing and improving, but I ask myself, why are we only just now developing a learning pathway around sexual abuse, around preventing and responding to sexual abuse?
"But then I think back over the last decade of the different waves of focus that we've had, it's because we've also been responding to the findings of child death inquests, or we've focused on infants, our understanding of cumulative harm has emerged ... so we have a focus on that."
Sexual assault support services:
- Sexual Assault Support Service (Tasmania): 1800 697 877
- Lifeline (24-hour crisis line): 131 114
- Tasmania's Victims of Crime Service: 1300 300 238