The dept of cosmetic services
Sun, 05/10/2008 - 21:31
When I had dealings with the NSW DOCS they where appaulling. I had 2 children living with my ex partner and she was completely neglectful and abusive. The eldest child was turning up to preschool smelling of urine that was so servere that the preschool used to use baby powder to mask the smell. Her freinds where notifying that when my ex went to there house that the children used to get excited about what they could find in there bins to eat.
The children used to get half a sausage roll or a bag of lollies for the day. I sat in the Lismore office and had a intake worker tell me that she knew of this child once that was brought up on lollies and coke and once that child was taken and was assessed she said that the peadiatrician was under the impression that the child was getting every thing it needed and I had nothing to worry about.
I have also turned up to the lismore office with one of my children covered in bruises and again I got to talk to a intake worker but because I had not rang the hot line they refused to talk to me he removed me from the interveiw room and pointed to a phone and said ring up the hotline and it will be assessed and if the file gets allocated they will be in contact.
I ended up being told on numorous times from DOCS that I was an over concerned father.
I now have both the children in my care through hard work and determination. But the lack of action on behalf of DOCS has been costly to my children, the eldest child now has global delays, PTSD, and an adjustment disorder and my youngest child is in the same boat, but the youngest one is 5 now and he is only just starting to talk both of these children where in an emencely poor situation. These days our time is spent with speech pathologists, child spycholigists, pedeatricians and occupational theropists.
During this period in time of fighting for these children and trying to get DOCS involved I got the impression that DOCS was nothing more than a bandaid to give people the impression that there was people actually fight for the protection of kids.
Hence the Dept of cosmetic services just a government Dept putting on a face for child protection.
Some people here may like to hold DOCs accountable for their actions I would like to hold them accountable for their inaction any ideas
Sat, 25/10/2008 - 13:34
#2
There is no insults here I am
There is no insults here I am pleased you are willing to reply to my post unfortunately you where not the first to suggest the chamber magistrate and unfortunately that did nothing except for a recomendation of a good source of legal representation.
With the rate of drug abuse in this area you would think that the department would increase recources considerably some this you see up here is disgraceful I know of atleast 2 families that need some serious intervention but no matter how much you report you know nothing is going to happen its sad when you get to the stage when you dont bother reporting because you know nothing will happen. When it gets to that stage where do you turn to help the kids, I have informed services to support us and hope that they can provide support for the children in a smart manner.
While what you describe sounds horrible, you need to realise that perhaps you should have organised some sort of family law court/legal advice. One thing that people don't realise is that the Family Law Court over rides any child protection laws in NSW. A visit to a chamber magistrate would have resulted in you being given an emergency order placing the children in your care full time thus minimising the risk of harm to your little ones and giving you the opportunity to gather all the evidence you'd need in Family Law Court to prove that your children should not be living with your ex partner. The importance of reporting to the HELPLINE isn't often explained all that well - in cases like the one you describe, your solicitor, even a legal aid solicitor, would have the right to subpeona the Department's records and show that you did in fact make reports on the risk of harm. While frustrating, it helps you with the paper trail to show the Magistrate that your children should be living with you.
And yes, before the insults start, I'm a Child Protection Caseworker for the Department. I don't claim that the Department has it all right, I don't even claim that they employ the right people for the job all the time but I do think that most of the staff do the best that they can with what they're given which at the end of the day is a lot of crap from the media, from society and from management. While I don't work out Lismore way (I'm Sydney based), I do know that there is a lack of resources out that way so perhaps that was the method behind the advice you were given. And I hear your frustration with the process of reporting to the HELPLINE. A lot of caseworkers share that frustration however for various reasons, like job security, we are unable to voice that out loud. Unfortunately it's a policy that the Department has enforced unless a child is presented at the CSC and in immediate risk of harm. The reports need to be processed through the HELPLINE and prioritised against other reports received that day at that particular CSC. That will allow management to make a decision on the best course of action for that particular child/report. Whether or not it requires a field response, follow up from the intake workers or closed. Given that it doesn't seem that there were any family law court orders in place, I dare say that perhaps the Department thought that if you were to seek legal advice you could take the children home with you full time until the matter was heard in FLC. I'd have thought that it should have been explained to you but perhaps it wasn't. I know that not all caseworkers are confident enough to explain the process to parents and some simply just don't know.
Anyway you probably don't want to hear much more from me. From what I've read on this forum, anyone who dares challenges the beliefs of those who hate the various Child Protection Departments is pretty much frowned upon and seen as the enemy.
Good luck with your future endeavours.