An inquiry into emergency accommodation in New South Wales has found the settings aren't suitable or appropriate environments for children and young people. The special inquiry was led by the state's advocate for children and young people - and heard testimony from young people who said they felt unsafe and unsupported in alternative care arrangements. The accommodation measures cost New South Wales taxpayers approximately $100 million in the 2022 to -23 financial year.
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00:00These alternative care arrangements include places like hotels, motels and caravan parks.
00:08And they're supposed to be last resort temporary measures, but this report has found that most
00:13children are staying in these settings for more than three months, some even over 600
00:19days.
00:20And they've detailed in this report some of the conditions that they're living in.
00:24In one person that I spoke to who stayed in some of these settings back in 2016 said
00:30that his hotel setting was so unhygienic that he found cockroaches in his bed, that he wasn't
00:36receiving support from those who were there with him.
00:40Now, on that note, the report says that these children and young people are being supported
00:45by subcontractors, workers from labour hire companies.
00:50They're not actually, you know, qualified to be giving this support to young people.
00:56We did hear from the New South Wales Advocate for Young People and Children who led this
01:00inquiry.
01:01As you mentioned, here's what she had to say.
01:03Heard from a number of children, young people who were moved consistently into different
01:07hotels, but also not knowing when they might return home or when they might have a stable
01:12placement.
01:13We also heard about a number of children, young people who had been disconnected with
01:15education, didn't have access to their health supports and weren't connected to their family
01:20and their friends.
01:21And we also heard about the fact that they felt not safe in these arrangements.
01:25Well, there were four main recommendations in this report.
01:28The first one was that these arrangements cease to exist.
01:33Also to ensure that there's more training so that these young people are being met with
01:38trauma informed responses, more around data transparency, ensuring that those, that data
01:43around these young people is being shared across agencies, including health and education.
01:48They want a complaints mechanism and oversight mechanism.
01:52And also to ensure that there's more pay training and support for volunteer foster carers to
01:57ensure that there is, you know, better care and also so that more people are being attracted
02:04to the sector.
02:05Now, we did also hear from the Minister for Families and Communities, Kate Washington.
02:11She says that this confirms what she's been saying, that the child protection system is
02:16broken and needs more reform and that while there is a decrease in the amount of young
02:21people that are living in these arrangements, more work needs to be done.