The health, education and welfare records of every South Australian child would be accessible to authorities in a central database under a reform option the State Government is considering.
In its submission to the Royal Commission into the Child Protection System in SA, the Government concedes there are fundamental problems and proposes a raft of reforms to “stimulate discussion and point to possible ... policy, legislation or programs”.
These include developing a database to bring together information on the education, health and welfare status of every child in a central location which “authorised persons” could use.
This could be a new database, or link existing stores of information held by separate agencies at a single point of access.
It is hoped the central system could help authorities to identify vulnerable and at-risk children earlier by detecting patterns, such as repeated admissions to hospital emergency departments or long-term school absences.
“For example, they might be identified through the providers of ... pre-natal and antenatal care, GPs, childcare, preschool or school, or through ... mental health, drug and alcohol, family violence, housing or policing services,” the submission says.
“The earlier we can intervene to strengthen and support these vulnerable families, the greater care, protection and lifelong outcomes for the children involved.”
The submission warns that the “expense” of creating such a database “would need to be carefully evaluated on a cost-benefit rationale”.
The Government has a difficult history of trying to introduce information technology, such as the troubled patient e-health records system.
UniSA child protection expert Elspeth McInnes said that a central database on children would be helpful for child protection authorities. But it must be supported by cutting-edge technology and enough staff to respond to identified concerns.
“More information held on children would enable things like learning or developmental delays, foetal alcohol syndrome, autism – that could all be part of the mix – to be identified and responded to,” Dr McInnes said. She added that the database should be programmed to “throw up a flag to be looked at” if a concerning entry is received.
Opposition Deputy Leader Vickie Chapman said the Government’s “mismanagement” of the child protection system “is not going to be turned around with a new computer program”. “A computer program is only as useful as its user,” Ms Chapman said.
“If people are not taking action when child protection notifications are made now, then that will continue to happen.“
The proposed database is based on a model operating in Tasmania which collates education and health data for every child. There is also a similar system operating in SA to tackle domestic violence.
The Government’s submission to royal commissioner Margaret Nyland concedes that, despite a tripling of resources for child protection, the system “struggles to keep pace” with spiralling numbers of notifications, more children with complex needs in state care, too many Aboriginal children in care, “inconsistent” service delivery and problems attracting and retaining foster carers.
It identifies five “priority” areas for improvement: building resilient families, better outcomes for Aboriginal children, intervention to stop repeated harm to children, better integration and delivery of support services and a skilled workforce.
It also says Families SA will develop an action plan for improvement, which would include performance targets.
Other reform ideas include:
- APPOINTING a senior public servant to co-ordinate child protection efforts across government agencies, based on a model operating in the UK.
- EXPANDING existing programs which support new mothers or young children who have mental health disorders.
- INVESTING more in services for Aboriginal children and increasing the child protection agency’s Aboriginal workforce.
- RUNNING regular community awareness campaigns about good parenting.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Lauren Novak
Quelle/Source: The Daily Telegraph, 28.09.2015
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