Abuse prevention
Prevention is classified into three groups: primary, secondary and tertiary.
Primary prevention includes community, professional and parent education for child protection and safety education in schools. In education and care settings it includes the provision of parent participation to:
develop behaviour management techniques through modelling
improve communication and listening skills
develop a better understanding of child development and how to help children to reach the next stage of growth and learning
demonstrate and encourage educational play with children
teach personal safety skills to children and parents
provide workshops for issues of concern such as budgeting, catering for children’s emotional needs, assertiveness training, nutrition and cooking on a budget, women’s health, discipline and positive child management skills
develop self-help and mutual support schemes when parents live in areas with high unemployment and chronic poverty
provide parent-organised school-based “pre-loved” clothing boutiques
provide secondary school courses in child care, life-skills and sexuality education and emergency child care and before-and-after school and holiday programmes
Secondary Prevention focusses on children/families known to be “at risk”. Early intervention includes multi-professional children’s centres providing one-stop-shops offering health, counselling, child care and early childhood education, before-and-after school and homework assistance programmes. It includes routine home visits to new mothers by suitably qualified nurses who assess and provide referrals to support services as needed. Early childhood centres plan to enhance children’s development and assist parents catering for children with serious disabilities. Secondary schools may also provide:
programmes to reduce the risk of young people living on the street and becoming unemployable
violence prevention programmes for adolescents that include rights and responsibilities
programmes to assist early school leavers to return to school with on-site childcare
breakfast programmes and showers for children in disadvantaged areas
America’s 4th National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (2010)106 showed that (a) education played a highly significant role in preventing child abuse and neglect and (b) “high quality” prevention programmes “work”. There was a 26% decrease in incidents of serious child abuse, especially sexual abuse, between 1993 and 2005. This decrease coincided with a massive investment in evidence-based prevention strategies, such as home visitation, parent support and education and information on early childhood development. The report supported the belief that these investments are less costly than the cost of abuse. In 2010, there was evidence that prevention infrastructure was at risk from government budget cuts. It was noted that children of unemployed parents had two times the rate of abuse and three times the rate of neglect than children of employed parents. Children living in households with incomes below $15,000 were neglected at seven times the rate of others. Despite its success, in 2009, many states cut funding to prevention, early childhood and home visitation programmes such as Healthy Families America.
Tertiary Prevention involves direct intervention to stop child abuse such as the treatment of perpetrators and potential perpetrators. The Tasmanian and South Australian Government were the last to introduce treatment programmes for convicted child sex offenders. Politicians expressed scepticism about their value.
In 2009, it was disclosed that only 25 incarcerated child sex offenders a year (out of 125) could receive treatment in South Australian prisons and the university’s specialist forensic psychology course to provide specialists for treatment programmes was closed down. In 2009, Western Australia’s Minister for Children Robin McSweeney proclaimed that state funding should only be spent on women and children, and closed the community-based Safecare Programme that treated 700 potential child sex offenders over a 20 year period. This was the state’s only counselling service for men who voluntarily sought help.
When asked to explain her actions, the Minister told the media that there was no proof that clients stopped abusing children and they didn’t need specialist help given that they could go to any psychologist using Medicare. Safecare’s director Ms Chamarette responded that, “It is too late to offer treatment in prison; we need good public health treatment programmes in the community.”
The view that child sex offenders are untreatable is widespread in political circles. Treatment does not sit comfortably with governments’ “let’s get tough with paedophiles” stance that was adopted in recent years107.
Risks to indigenous children
Australian state child protection departments have been accused of failing in their role to protect indigenous children, especially in the Northern Territory. As the ombudsman pointed out, these are recent, not historical bungles.
In January 2010, the Northern Territory Government was accused of being “shambolic” and having a “culture of cover-up”. Four different government ministers on a “ministerial merry-go-round” were blamed for ignoring the concerns of social workers leading to the horrific death of 12-year old foster child Deborah Melville who died of a heart attack caused by an untreated leg fracture. The criminal court heard that a child protection officer visited the foster home the day before the child’s death108. She documented Deborah’s distress as she lay weeping on the kitchen floor, later to stagger down the hallway to the bathroom, unsteady on her feet and gripping the walls for support.
As her report reached the desks of departmental bureaucrats, the child was being carried from the bath into the yard where she died, propped against a trailer. The bone infection that developed from a three-week-old untreated leg fracture had entered a critical stage. Her leg filled with 1.5 litres of pus, the septicaemia spread to the girl’s vital organs and she became delusional. In the hours after the social worker saw Deborah hobbling “like a crab” along the corridor, the girl collapsed and was found two hours later lying fully clothed in the bath. Children gave evidence that they washed out Deborah’s dry mouth with salt water. It was revealed that 17 people lived in the foster home, two of whom were males with intellectual disabilities. The foster mother was alleged to have visited the casino daily. The trial heard that an assessment of whether this was an appropriate foster home had been delayed repeatedly.
Deborah Melville’s death triggered a damning audit of the department, details of which were not made public. Following evidence in the “previously secret report” that the child protection service was “near-total breakdown”, ombudsman Carolyn Richards labelled the inquiry as a “façade”, accusing the government of failing to protect the most vulnerable children (while simultaneously “muzzling” her office). The report revealed that the children were harmed by being placed in homes known to be dangerous or by ignoring serious abuse.
While there are no accurate statistics for the incidence of child abuse in Aboriginal communities, there is sufficient information to show that the occurrence of violence of all kinds is disproportionately high compared with the Australian population as a whole creating “a crisis of frightening magnitude”109. Stanley, Tomison and Pocock (2001)110 cited several studies showing that too many indigenous children are growing up learning that violence is normal. In one Queensland community alone, more women have been killed in violent assaults than there have been black deaths of males in custody throughout the entire state111. Aboriginal women in remote communities are 45 times more likely to be victims of domestic violence