The NSW Department of Communities & Justice has come under intense criticism for failing to meet its targets for the over-representations of First Nations children in the state’s out-of-home care system (OOHC).

The NSW Ombudsman’s Aboriginal Outcomes Strategy focus area 2 (out-of-home care) – were the targets achieved? says the department has failed to reduce Aboriginal representation in OOHC and did not achieve any of its four targets set out in the five-year strategy.

The department did not meet its targets for a 10% reduction in the number of Aboriginal children in OOHC by 30 June 2020 and a 20% reduction by 2022.

Between 2017 and 2022, the proportion of children in OOHC who are Aboriginal has increased, from 38.4% in June 2017 to 43.8% in June 2022.

In 2017, Aboriginal children were 9.3 times more likely to be in OOHC than non-Aboriginal children. By 2022, Aboriginal children were 11 times more likely to be in OOHC.

There were also concerns about the lack of transparency from the department.

“Our concern has been the failure of DCJ itself to report transparently on what it did to implement the strategy, and its failure to publicly report on the outcomes of the AOS, including whether and the extent to which the OOHC goal and its four associated targets were achieved,” the Ombudsman said.

“In the absence of such reporting by the department itself, the NSW Ombudsman’s office set out to independently assess and report on what was done to implement the AOS, whether its goal of reducing Aboriginal over-representation in OOHC was achieved, and the extent to which its targets were met.”

NSW Ombudsman Paul Miller. Image: NSW Government.

Greens spokesperson for First Nations Justice Sue Higginson said: “The report is alarming, but sadly it’s not surprising that the NSW Government has once again failed to deliver real outcomes for First Nations children, families and communities across NSW."

“The report describes a completely bungled strategy and then no effort on DCJ’s part to get the strategy back on track or even tell the NSW community that it had failed."

A Department of Communities and Justice spokesperson told the Western Plains App “DCJ is continuing to work on OOHC targets through the Premier’s Priority and other initiatives.

"A key component of this is implementing the NSW Government’s commitments under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, to reduce the rate of over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in OOHC by 45 percent by 2031," they said.

“DCJ is implementing an action plan to drive down rates of over-representation of Aboriginal children in the OOHC system and meet the NSW Government commitment to Closing the Gap, reflected in the 2022-24 NSW Implementation Plan”.

Department criticised for not considering child's needs

The Ombudsman’s report comes amidst a series of revelations and views expressed about a series of problems with the out-of-home care system.

A matter in an NSW Magistrates Court recently revealed that some care providers for children out of care are seeking payments of up to $9,000 a week to care for a child out-of-home. In some cases, service providers were asking for $40,000 a month for children in their care who were going to school complaining of hunger pains.

While Pat Callaghan from the Western NSW Legal Centre told the Western Plains App he saw a vast range of problems with how DCJ handled out-of-home care processes and often set it up so even parents who genuinely making efforts to improve were unable to have regular contact with their children - and when children are asking for it.

“We deal a lot of work in the home of care space. We see situations where contact is not happening between parents and the child when it really should be, and it is in the child’s best interest to do so”.

He says when A child is placed in OOHC the department is required to consult the parents to create a care plan every 12 months.

“Parents are not being sufficiently consulted or sometimes consulted at all”.