Care crisis for troubled juveniles
19.07.2005
YOUNG children with severe behavioural problems are each costing taxpayers more than $350,000 a year for 24-hour professional care and therapy under a $20million Queensland government program that caters for fewer than 300 adolescents.
While health professionals yesterday applauded the Government for ``treating symptoms'', they labelled the program unsustainable and criticised a lack of preventive measures to stop the cycle of neglect before the children needed such enormous financial and personal investments.
The strongest criticism is levelled at cases from remote indigenous communities, almost all of which have no resident doctors or dedicated child health professionals. This forces the removal of children with complex behavioural problems from their family networks to cities such as Cairns for the programs.
In one case, three children were taken from their family at Aurukun community on western Cape York because they were neglected by their young alcoholic mother.
The oldest, a boy now aged 13, has been in ``care'' in Cairns for six years. Departmental workers contacted by The Australian call him ``the $3million boy'' -- the estimated cost to taxpayers of his care by the time he turns 18. They predict that he will then go to jail.
Three childcare professionals work daily eight-hour shifts watching over him, and psychologists and a psychiatrist also work with him. Tutors are brought in for private education.
In a tearful interview with The Australian last week, the boy's distraught grandmother at Aurukun said the child recently attacked one of his care workers and was sentenced to 214 days in the Cleveland juvenile detention unit in Townsville.
Cairns pediatrician Richard Heazlewood said there was an urgent need for a dedicated facility to house the children in need.
``I would think some sort of farm arrangement should be established where these children could be looked after and cared for properly,'' Dr Heazlewood said. His call for a farm facility was backed by experienced indigenous community general practitioner Lara Wieland, from the Cape York Institute for Indigenous Policy and Leadership in Cairns. She said doctors were seeing the first generation of fetal alcohol-affected children as teenagers. They were a danger to others and were themselves vulnerable to abuse.
``These are children who are extremely difficult to handle, often violent, almost always offenders and commonly sexual offenders, or who demonstrate inappropriate sexual behaviour towards other children,'' she said.
Dr Wieland said for the most effective investment of government funds, a dedicated child health nurse and Aboriginal child health worker should be employed in every community.
Aurukun mayor Neville Pootchemunka said the ``$3million boy'' in question had to be taken away because he had been neglected. But he would prefer that the boy and others in a similar situation be returned to their communities as soon as possible.
``It worries me that on two occasions I have visited Cairns and seen this child walking alone around the streets,'' he said.
Queensland Child Safety Minister Mike Reynolds confirmed that $40.2million had been spent in the past two years on Placement and Support Programs and, as at May this year, there were 290 children on PASP packages.
``They are tailored to individual need, and costs can range from a relatively low $40,000 to more than $350,000 in a year,'' he said.
``The packages are designed to meet the particular physical disability, behavioural or mental health needs of the specific child and young person.''
