Child abuse & protection. (Youth Monitor).

Federal protection service recommended

In a major report called Family Law and Child Protection released by the federal Attorney-General Daryl Williams, the Family Law Council has recommended sweeping changes, including the establishment of a Commonwealth child-protection service to allow the Family Court of Australia to initiate child-abuse risk assessments. The report notes that, at present, parents are left on their own to prove or disprove abuse claims made in the Family Court. `Wrong decisions in this area can have tragic long-term consequences for children and families.'

Across the nation, the children's courts deal with a range of issues, including child protection, under state and territory laws, while the Family Court of Australia deals with custody and other issues under federal law. Child abuse is an issue for both. The new report recommends that duplication of effort between state and federal systems should be avoided (Age, 28/10/02, p.2).

Recurrent abuse

At least 10% of victims of child abuse are mistreated again within months of their cases being investigated, said a new policy paper from the Child and Family Welfare Association of Australia. The paper, called A Time to Invest, said that child-protection services run by the states and territories were failing to prevent repeated abuse. During 1999-2000, at least 10.2% of confirmed abuse cases in every state were followed by re-abuse within 12 months of the family's being investigated by state child-protection services. The situation was worst in South Australia, where the re-abused proportion was nearly 24%. In Queensland it was over 22% (Age, 27/8/02, p.4; Australian, 27/8/02, p.6, and 28/8/02, p.6; Canberra Times, 2818102, p.4).

Abused adolescents and delinquency

Abused children are much less likely to become juvenile delinquents if the maltreatment they suffer is stopped early in their lives, a new study shows. But if the abuse continues into, or starts in, early adolescence, the outcomes are much bleaker.

Researchers Susan Dennison and Anna Stewart, of Griffith University's School of Criminology, followed the records of almost 10,000 children born in 1983, through 17 years. They found that adolescents, the `forgotten' children of the child-protection system, need much more attention. `There are a number of theories about the 0-3 or 0-5 age being crucial in terms of later outcomes,' Dr Dennison said. `We're not saying [that] that age group is not important. It is. However, maltreatment of older children is more likely to lead them into offending.' One reason may be that some maltreated adolescents leave home and fall into a criminal subculture. Another could be that the older the children, the more likely they were to have been abused and neglected over a longer period (Age, 28/9/02, p.8).