Helping Protect Our Children

JournoNews caught up with for­mer New Zealand Police Offi­cer, Tracy Scott, now work­ing as a Child Safety Offi­cer, to find out about her valu­able role engag­ing fam­i­lies in the Bris­bane community.

What made you choose your profession?

I had a desire to help peo­ple in the com­mu­nity to change their cir­cum­stances and be able to live full and effec­tive lives. After fin­ish­ing my qual­i­fi­ca­tion, my sis­ter became a vic­tim of a hor­ren­dous assault. After my pos­i­tive deal­ings with the Police dur­ing this time (they found and con­victed the per­pe­tra­tor) I had a stronger desire to join the Police Ser­vice, and enjoyed an eight-year career as a Police Offi­cer in New Zealand. I returned to Social Work after a period of time away from the work­force with my chil­dren. (Polic­ing was too scary to return to!) I like to think that Social Work is about empow­er­ing peo­ple, to help indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies to feel in con­trol with the choices they make, to bet­ter their circumstances.

What do you love about your job? Dislike?

Work­ing in Child Pro­tec­tion does have some rewards. Even though I get a lot of peo­ple telling me they could never do my job! I cur­rently case man­age a num­ber of chil­dren that are in fos­ter care under either short-term or long-term Child Pro­tec­tion Orders. I find it sat­is­fy­ing being able to advo­cate for a child (in the sys­tem) to help make their lives a lit­tle bit eas­ier i.e. organ­ise fund­ing for a child to receive coun­selling, attend a hol­i­day camp, inter­state vis­its for fam­ily con­tact, extra edu­ca­tion sup­port at their schools. Over a two year period, I have devel­oped good rela­tion­ships with a num­ber of the chil­dren and fam­i­lies. It is sat­is­fy­ing when you can work towards uni­fy­ing a fam­ily and chil­dren can ulti­mately be safely returned to their parents.

My dis­likes mainly focus around work­ing in Child Safety as an organ­i­sa­tion. Most Ser­vice Cen­tres in Queens­land are extremely under resourced. I get frus­trated that I can’t do the best for the chil­dren and fam­i­lies I work with due to the large case load we are expected to carry. I am chal­lenged when the Man­ager tells me that I can’t access a cer­tain resource for a child, because it will cost too much. As most careers have become these days … it is all about account­abil­ity. Too much of my work­ing day is spent behind my com­puter, writ­ing reports, case notes, enter­ing data into ‘the sys­tem’ and writ­ing affi­davits and other court work for appli­ca­tions for Orders before the Children’s Court. Not enough time left in the day, to have face to face con­tact with the families.

Do you feel you’re mak­ing a dif­fer­ence or is the task at hand insurmountable?

Yes, I feel my work is valu­able. I am try­ing to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence to the lives of chil­dren that have expe­ri­enced many forms of on-going tragedies and set-backs. I have observed chil­dren lit­er­ally flour­ish, once they were removed from their par­ents due to neglect and abuse. Plac­ing young chil­dren in good fos­ter homes where set bound­aries are in place and enforced (with love and care) and resources accessed for the chil­dren can make a big dif­fer­ence to help­ing them reach their poten­tial.
The job of soci­ety to deal with pre­ven­tion of child abuse and neglect … that to me is insur­mount­able. There will always be increas­ing amounts of chil­dren in need of pro­tec­tion, as indi­vid­u­als expe­ri­ence more social iso­la­tion and soci­ety encour­ages us to put the needs of our­selves before others.

What is a recur­ring prob­lem you see in your deal­ings with families?

Addic­tions, men­tal health ill­ness and the feel­ing of hope­less­ness!
You and I might think that hav­ing your chil­dren removed from your care would be enough moti­va­tion to change your cir­cum­stance and cre­ate a safe envi­ron­ment for the return of your chil­dren. Sadly, there are too many chil­dren that are never re-united with their par­ents due to the hope­less­ness of the par­ents’ cir­cum­stance, inabil­ity to over­come strong addic­tions or recover from men­tal illness.

Has the eco­nomic down­turn con­tributed towards an increased work­load for your department?

I believe so. Last year, the fig­ures of reports to child pro­tec­tion agen­cies across Aus­tralia were dou­ble the num­ber reported five years ago. There is a co-relation between finan­cial hard­ship to fam­i­lies and chil­dren suf­fer­ing under par­ent­ing from stressed and some­times over­worked par­ents. Child pro­tec­tion activ­ity is typ­i­cally con­cen­trated in fam­i­lies and neigh­bour­hoods with the great­est lev­els of poverty and poverty related fac­tors (such as unem­ploy­ment, poor health, poor edu­ca­tion, high crime, etc.).

Is there a big need for fostering?

Most def­i­nitely! There is enor­mous pres­sure on the Aus­tralian out-of-home care sys­tem to meet esca­lat­ing demand to pro­vide good qual­ity care for chil­dren in need of pro­tec­tion. Basi­cally, we need more fam­i­lies to open up their homes to chil­dren need­ing respite, short-term and long-term care. The qual­ity of fos­ter car­ers can vary. I have met some excep­tional fos­ter car­ers (includ­ing kin­ship car­ers) that have made an amaz­ing dif­fer­ence in the lives of chil­dren in need of care. Fos­ter­ing is not an easy job. Many of the chil­dren that come into care are ‘bro­ken’ chil­dren that can come with a vari­ety of social, emo­tional or phys­i­cal dis­ad­van­tages. Fos­ter car­ers are vol­un­teers who are there to make a dif­fer­ence in the lives of dis­ad­van­taged chil­dren. The role can be extremely reward­ing and enrich­ing for the whole fam­ily. If any­one is con­sid­er­ing tak­ing on this role, there is the oppor­tu­nity to begin by being a respite carer for week­end or short-term stays.

What do you do to switch off?

It is hard not to take home the trou­bles of the fam­i­lies I work with. I some­times feel very dis­heart­ened by the human spirit when deal­ing with peo­ple who can be so cruel and destruc­tive to children’s lives.
To feel nor­mal again, I like keep­ing myself fit with jog­ging, walk­ing my gor­geous fury friend Lola, doing Boot Camp and play­ing ten­nis and enjoy­ing cof­fee with my three inspir­ing South African mates.

You’re orig­i­nally from New Zealand — what do you miss most about Wellington?

I miss tramp­ing (Kiwi word) through the lus­cious NZ bush. I miss the good qual­ity of food and cof­fee. I miss the close­ness to the ocean and some spe­cial friends and fam­ily mem­bers. We do get good qual­ity time with peo­ple stay­ing with us from NZ to escape their end­less cold weather! Our life-style in Bris­bane is pretty awe­some, six years on!

What are your passions?

To encour­age my girls to lead a happy, healthy life and do my best to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment that will sup­port this while they are young.
I would like to think that I can bring any amount of sun­shine to peo­ple along my jour­ney with thought­ful­ness to others.

Dream hol­i­day?

I want to take my girls to Den­mark to visit the fam­ily I lived with many years ago as an exchange stu­dent (We have kept in con­tact all these years, gor­geous peo­ple!). I want to show them some of the rich cul­tures in Europe. We have to save hard for that one!