“The fact that one of the people that was put on a pedestal to care for the children was one of my perpetrators, and I think that’s wrong, and DoCS were aware of that and allowed that to be covered up.”
– Parent, Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home research
– Parent, BTHKTH research
Some parents have said that their child experienced harm when they were in out-of-home care.
“About two years ago my son ran away from his grandmother and his father. He told me that he was being really badly abused and mistreated. Through the years I had made reports of what was going on and what he was telling me was going on in that house and it was basically dismissed or DoCS would go and talk to them and they would find out what [my son] was telling me and it would get even worse for him. On his 13th birthday he rang me up and told me, Mum, if you don’t come and get me I’m going to kill myself. He was that resourceful that he literally got my number out of his grandmother’s phone, wrote it in one of his school books and went to the local McDonalds and asked a stranger if he could use their phone to ring me. When I went there and got him he literally just ran up to me and cuddled me. It was the best feeling in the world. I was sitting there telling everyone, I’m worried about my son, something is really wrong with him and I’m scared for him, and no one was listening. I told the DoCS worker – I always told everyone, you watch my son. He’s going to run away and he’s going to come home to me, and they all thought that I was crazy and that I was talking garbage or that I was lying to make up trouble. It happened and then they come down and tried to put him back in that placement and I basically just put my foot down and I said…Youse aren’t taking him back. It took a while but they allowed for him to stay with my mum while I tried to get custody of him. It’s taken over two years. Then earlier this year I finally got awarded custody of my son, after all that time. My daughter was removed from the placement in March last year because I was making all these complaints and ringing up the hotline and saying, this is what’s going on with my kids. Youse have put my kids in a violent placement. My kids are exposed to drugs, they’re exposed to DV. What’s going on? I felt like no one was listening to me.”
– Parent, Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home research
“Now, every single one of them told me even if your child is autistic or has ADHD, they cannot be medically diagnosed until after five years old so now how in the fuck did a three year old get given six pills a day and be diagnosed with these conditions at three years old? Two and three years old? That’s not making sense.”
– Parent, Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home research
“They tried telling me that they were going to come to my house, I said, no, you’re not, cunt, fuck off. You’re not coming in, you’re not stating this shit, you’re not doing all this. When they tried to take [child] again because of him being at hospital…So my son was neglected in the care of the minister. …That’s why he’s bow-legged and feet. Because I begged for them to check him up and they didn’t do it. They couldn’t tell me if I was going to get my son taken off me or not…I said… I don’t give a fuck who you think you are, I don’t give a fuck what you done last time, it’s not happening for a third time because I’m not going down without a fight”
– Parent, Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home research
There are multiple ways you can complain about the treatment of your child in care and their experiences, for things to change, and this may or may not work. It doesn’t matter who you are complaining to, you should remember the following things:
DCJ caseworkers often do not listen to or believe Aboriginal parents. DCJ do not have good enough oversight of all children in OOHC and continue to have accountability mechanisms (like their complaints unit) that are not good enough2. DCJ lacks proper quality checks to make sure the rights of Aboriginal children are protected, including all processes and decisions leading up to a child’s removal (Audit report, 2024). This means parents and family members are forced to be strategic about getting their voices heard.
Different options for putting in a complaint:
“I contacted the Ombudsmen with as detailed as I could report. Because they only let you put a certain amount of letters into a reports. So, I’m trying to get all this information in – so I gave them as detailed as I could. When they contact back, they had handed all the information over to the DoCS complaints line. But I’m not sure what happened all from there”
– Parent, Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home research
They must follow the principles of respectful treatment and transparency, outlined in the DCJ Managing Complaints and Feedback Policy. The worker looking into the complaint needs to be different to the person being complained about, and there should be no unfair treatment to the person who made the complaint. The policy says you should be given help to make the complaint if you want it, and it should be confidential and accessible.
If your child is being case managed by a Non-Government Organisation or Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation, and you want to make a reportable complaint about the safety of your child, the agency is required to conduct a reportable conduct investigation. These reportable allegations need to be about either your child’s carer, an adult household member, or someone that works at the agency. Once the investigation is done, the agency needs to tell the Office of the Children’s Guardian (OCG) and DCJ what they found.
Depending on your situation and the DCJ caseworker, and if you feel safe enough, you could choose to talk to the DCJ caseworker about your concerns. If your child is in OOHC, DCJ should not be telling the carer information about your concerns if there is a risk it will harm your child. For example, DCJ should not be telling carers that your child has told you that someone is using violence in care, because it might put your child at further harm from the carer.
You can complain directly to your local CSC office that is case managing or used to case manage your child. Google ‘DCJ Community Services Centre’ to find the number and location of the CSC you need to complain to.
This hotline deals directly with DCJ’s actions and decisions and other services that are funded by DCJ. They will try to handle the issue on the phone or give the issue to someone else to solve. They say they try to have the issue solved in 20 days, but experiences of parents is that it can take much longer than that.
You can talk to them about decisions and actions DCJ have made, like being treated badly or bad communication. If they say your complaint is ‘justified’, they can either fix the mistake, say sorry, tell you why they made that decision, or make promises to improve their polices, practices or systems. They can decide to handle the complaint by contacting the local DCJ office with case management to solve it.
Post: Reply Paid 63437, Complaints Unit, Locked Bag 4028, Ashfield NSW 2131.
If you know your child is in an unsafe placement or at risk of harm, you can call this helpline to make a child protection report. This is the same way that reports would have been made about your family, but the outcome might not be the same, and the type of assessment that they do could be different. However, just like with your family, DCJ is required to consider every report that they receive.
This is an independent body that deals with fixing legal problems by solving disagreements and giving out enforceable orders. This can include reviewing decisions made by NSW government agencies (including DCJ).
Solving these issues might include things like mediation, conciliation, case conferences or hearings. You can speak to the NCAT Registry if you are unsure of this option.
The OCG won’t deal directly with complaints or concerns about risk of harm to individual children. If you are worried about an organisation’s employee and how they behave around children, you can report this to the OCG. The report might be about sexual misconduct involving a child, ill-treatment of a child, neglect of a child, or assault against a child.
Postal address: Office of the Children’s Guardian Level 13, 418A Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010 Australia
You can complain to the Minister for Families and Communities and Minister for Disability Inclusion by filling out the form on the website. You can also write a letter and post it. Make sure to include evidence of what you are saying. They say they will try and get back to you within 20 days, but there are sometimes delays. Your complaint will become a formal departmental record. If there is a threat in the complaint, they will send it to the police. Lots of families have approached their local members of parliament before and asked them to represent them to government decision makers (Ministers and Secretaries). This is often a way of putting pressure on and getting things heard by the Minister.
Postal address: The Hon. Kate Washington MP, PO Box 82, Raymond Terrace, NSW 2324
The NSW Ombudsman is an independent agency that is responsible for investigating complaints about government and some NGO agencies (including DCJ, foster care, and OOHC agencies) and the actions they make. They will look at the information you give them and decide what action to take. If there are no current issues and the complaint is over a year old, they can say no to the complaint. They might find another agency to refer the complaint to, help to solve it with the agency involved, and suggest to the agency what they could do. They then make findings and recommendations to the service or agency and keep tabs on what the agency does to make it happen. The Ombudsman might ask for you to follow the other ways of complaining before they look at it. They receive more complaints than they investigate, and formal processes can take a long time and be complicated (Family is Culture Review Report 2019, page 304).
Some case workers are social workers, and some social workers are a member of the AASW. You can find out if your case worker is a member on their website.
You can make a complaint to the AASW if your caseworker has had unethical conduct or gone against the AASW code of ethics. The complaint can go to the Ethics Complaints Management Process.
AHPRA are the ones who monitor if psychologists follow their policies and procedures. If someone such as your caseworker or children’s court clinician is a registered psychologist, you can report them here. Their response will be to either take action to fix the matter if the psychologist went against their policies or procedures, explain the situation, apologise, or review their policies and procedures.
AbSec and our partners acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout NSW and their continuing connections to land, waters, and communities. We also acknowledge the lands on which these stories were told, the lands of the Dharawal, Yuin and Wonnarua people.
We acknowledge the Elders, leaders and advocates that have led the way and continue to fight for our children. We also acknowledge the Stolen Generations who never came home and the ongoing impact of government policy and practice on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, young people and families.
This website shares the experiences and advice of Aboriginal families involved in the NSW child protection system who participated in the Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home research at UNSW. We acknowledge and thank the families who generously gave permission to share their stories.
These experiences reflect what worked for those families and do not constitute advice or views of AbSec. AbSec recommends seeking independent legal advice for your own circumstances.
