Former Supreme Court Judge, the late Ted Mullighan, released his findings in 2008, attaching 46 recommendations. The inquiry found evidence of child abuse and violence against women. A report into the Government’s progress is released annually.

But Jonathan Nicholls from Uniting Care Wesley says the latest report is skewed and contains little useful information.“As we’ve started to examine it closely and we’ve gone to departments and organisations and say ‘can you tell us a bit more about what was in the report’ we’ve found that what was in the report in fact wasn’t accurate or was quite out of date,” he said.

“The third report that was tabled late last year isn’t a significant improvement on the previous years’ reports which are by and large a grab-bag of bits of information about certain things that are happening but not a systematic account of where money’s going, where things were at the start and whether there have been significant improvements over time.

“There’s very little in the report about funding commitments in response to specific recommendations. There’s very little consistent information about how Government activity has changed the situation on the APY lands.

“In the report there are a number of statements that are quite misleading where the Government says some recommendation has been completed but in fact they’ve created a position in response to the recommendation but haven’t been able to fill that position.

“Commissioner Mullighan said there must be two child protection workers permanently on the APY lands and only one of those positions has been filled for the past 18 months.”

Family First MP Robert Brokenshire agrees that the annual reports need to be improved.

“I think there’s been a reasonable amount of spin in the way they’ve developed the reporting document,” he said.

“It’s hard to actually put your finger on where they’ve got good outcomes and where there’s been a proper qualitative response to the recommendations with what they’ve been delivering,” he said.

It is not the first time the Government has been accused of being slow to implement the inquiry’s proposals.

Last year, the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement said less than a quarter of the recommendations had been addressed.

The Government says it is committed to being transparent and accountable, which is why an annual report is tabled.

Source: ABC News

The ten members will review current state policies governing child protection, the reporting of child abuse, and propose suggestions to improve the system. Four members were appointed by Governor Tom Corbett, and three each by the House and Senate.

Dr. Rachel Berger, a Child Protection team member at Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital, was selected by Senate leaders. Berger says that, due to factors such as budget, the now highly-publicized issue had been put on the back-burner.“I think [child abuse] has been an issue for a long time,” Berger said. “I think that the idea that we’ve been asking for a Task Force and also for an ombudsman for many years and I do think that the Sandusky case was a tipping point. It’s not to say that nobody has ever cared about child abuse before, but it has not been a priority.”

Berger believes that Pennsylvania has fallen behind with child protection policies, and suggests that the Task Force may fix the problem with innovative laws. “I tell people, you know, that we were one of the first states to have child protection laws, and we were really ahead of the curve. Unfortunately, those laws haven’t changed very much, and now if you look at other states we’re not ahead of the curve anymore.”

William Strickland, President and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation, is one of the governor’s selections for the panel. He believes that his 40 years of educational experience with the Bidwell Training Center in Pittsburgh will assist in the commission’s efforts.

“My background in education and working with young people will be a contributing factor in my role in the commission, I am certain of that,” Strickland said.

Strickland noted that in 40 years at Bidwell there has not been an alcohol, drug, or police incident despite being located in the inner city.

“We know how to create safe and nurturing environments for people in the city and I’m very proud of that,” Strickland said.

Strickland adds that he hopes to see a positive change in child protection policies. “I hope that many people, media included, will come to understand the work we do here in the city on behalf of people who have been disadvantaged, and that there will be greater evidence that suggests that we can be more effective in working on these environments.”

There has been no timeline set for the Task Force’s recommendations.

The four members appointed by the governor are:

David W. Heckler, Bucks County District Attorney
William Strickland, president and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation
Dr. Cindy W. Christian, director of Safe Place: The Center for Child Protection and Health, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Delilah Rumburg, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Members selected by the Senate are:

Dr. Rachel Berger, member of Child Protection Team at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
Garrison Ipock Jr., executive director, the Glen Mills Schools, Glen Mills
Carol Hobbs-Picciotto, MHS, Intake Social Worker, City of Philadelphia.

Members appointed by the House are:

Jason Kutalakis, senior partner, Abom & Kutalakis LLP, Carlisle
Jackie Bernard, Chief Deputy District Attorney, Blair County
Arthur Grim, Senior Judge, Court of Common Pleas of Berks County.

Source:

The report – the latest in a series of scathing exposes of the state’s child protection system – also reveals that cases have been prematurely closed with insufficient assurances that the children involved were safe.

Acting Ombudsman John Taylor found 59 cases that should be reconsidered, and expressed dismay at being ”compelled” to again report on the failure of the Department of Human Services to ensure the safety of children.”A practice has developed where the drive to meet numerical targets has overshadowed the interest of children,” Mr Taylor found in his report into the Loddon Mallee region, in Victoria’s north-west.

The report follows last week’s finding on a toddler who was fatally bashed at her father’s house in St Arnaud in 2009. Coroner John Olle cited the department and police for ”serious deficiencies” in investigations.

The Ombudsman found:

■The failure to investigate 59 child protection reports was an intentional policy decision in Loddon Mallee to cut investigations. The number of investigations in 2010-11 was more than 25 per cent down on the year before, despite more reports.

■Investigation witnesses had described concerted efforts to close a large number of cases, to reduce the number of children on waiting lists. Ninety cases were closed on June 28 alone.

■The misrepresentation of data, with 14 cases remaining allocated to a protection worker who was on extended leave.

The report, triggered by a whistleblower’s tip-off in June, slammed the department for superficial assessments and ”minimum possible intervention” to reduce the number of children not allocated a protection worker. ”This could be seen as an exercise in keeping the numbers down, to the detriment of the children involved,” the Ombudsman wrote.

He acknowledged that managers in the region denied the report’s allegations but said the evidence ”speaks for itself”.

The department head and Loddon Mallee managers ”strongly disagreed” that case allocation was about numerical targets and manipulating data.
”The staff and managers within my region work tirelessly and with dedication to protect vulnerable children,” one manager was quoted saying. ”I fundamentally deny the existence of a culture of compromising child safety and well-being.”

Mr Taylor also criticised the handling of an infant whose death will not be reported in annual statistics despite the department referring the mother, while she was pregnant, to a welfare organisation.

The infant was found in ”appalling circumstances”, with the report showing a police photo of the bed where the baby died surrounded by soiled nappies, cigarette butts and chicken bones. ”Even after police reported these conditions to the department, no action was taken until I referred the matter to the [department] secretary,” the Ombudsman reported.

Other cases that were not investigated included reports of parents assaulting each other while holding young children, severe drug use by parents and children telling teachers they had been physically assaulted.

The report made six recommendations – all accepted by the Baillieu government – including that the department monitor and report the number of cases that have not been investigated.

Community Services Minister Mary Wooldridge said the child protection system was being overhauled, and that staff should focus on children’s best interests. No disciplinary action would result from the report.

Opposition child protection spokesman Luke Donnellan said the Ms Wooldridge needed to explain how what was described in the report had occurred on her watch. Child Safety Commissioner Bernie Geary said the report should be used to enhance the system.

Mildura-based Mallee Family Care said the report showed that in some ways child protection problems were intractable.
”Almost without fail, every report has identified our ability to fail to detect the numbers of children at risk. What we need … is responses that make sure that the kids at risk do not become the next group of damaging parents,” chief executive Vernon Knight said.

Source: The Age

The National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN) web-based initiative also extends to boyfriends, teachers, neighbours, youth workers and others who might be able to help a child in need.

Launched in Sydney on Monday, website aims to get people involved in preventing child abuse.

“We all have a part to play in preventing child abuse and neglect, whether we’re parents, relatives, neighbours, policy makers, businesses, journalists or employers,” said NAPCAN president Olya Booyar.

Playyourpart.org.au and a linked YouTube channel feature case studies along with skits and DIY music videos.

Parliamentary Secretary for Community Services Julie Collins said the federal government had provided $300,000 to support the program, which was released at the start of Child Protection Week.

“The Australian government is unwavering in our resolve to ensure children and young people are able to flourish in happy and healthy environments,” she told reporters at the launch.

Ms Collins said the Gillard government was working on a national audit on child protection.

“Protecting children and their right to a safe and healthy life is one of the most important responsibilities of all governments,” she said.

“The audit provides directions and priorities to help target future research, including the government’s national research agenda for protecting children, which will be finalised later this year.”

Research undertaken by NAPCAN last year found 92 per cent of Australians thought child abuse was a major problem, with the majority of those surveyed not knowing what they could do to help.

Ms Booyar said called on all NAPCAN supporters to put their information on the website.

“Put (your) clips up on the YouTube site so everybody can share … it takes a community to raise a child,” she said.

Source: Nine Msn

The report funded by Unicef also found that one out of seven young men had been sexually abused.

Investigators surveyed more than 3 700 people aged 13 to 24 across the East African nation.

Tanzanian officials vowed to address the issue. And Unicef’s Tanzania Chief of Child Protection, Andrew Brooks, commended the country for seeking statistical proof of child abuse.

The study released on Tuesday also found that three-quarters of those surveyed had been physically abused as children.

The report was carried out by Muhimbili University for Health and Allied Science, with the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Source: News 24

‘The days of voluntary compliance are over when it comes to child protection,” said Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald recently, following yet another horrific child-abuse report.

It was a bold statement. After years of failure by church and State authorities to fully comply with child-protection guidelines, Fitzgerald insisted that voluntary guidelines were not enough. Under tough new laws, failure to disclose information on child sexual abuse would result in such sanctions as fines or jail terms, she said.

In addition, the national code on dealing with child protection concerns, Children First, would be placed on a statutory footing, creating a legal duty for adults who work with children to report suspected cases of abuse and neglect. No one would be above the law.

A heated debate is unfolding on whether mandatory reporting is a good idea. Could it lead to a flood of reports and push overstretched services to breaking point? Or might it change our culture?

In looking for answers, it’s worth considering Australia, where mandatory reporting has been in place for decades. All its eight states and territories have some kind of legislative requirement to report known and reasonably suspected significant child abuse.

The groups of people who are obliged to report suspected significant abuse vary from a limited number of groups of specified persons such as doctors and nurses (as in Queensland), to a broader range of persons working with children (including doctors, nurses, teachers, police and others, as in New South Wales) to every adult (as in the Northern Territory).

Each region defines the different categories of suspected child maltreatment that must be reported to authorities, usually requiring reports of all four major types of maltreatment: physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological or emotional abuse, and neglect.

At a recent seminar in Trinity College Dublin, Prof Leah Bromfield, the deputy director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia, warned that Ireland should think carefully about introducing mandatory reporting.

New South Wales has been the subject of particular attention. It introduced mandatory reporting in the 1970s, requiring medical practitioners to report assault, ill-treatment or exposure. Over the years, the state widened the definition of abuse and, by 2000, reporting duties extended to exposure to domestic violence, where the child is at risk of serious harm.

Within several years, the rate of reporting had risen six-fold, overwhelming the child protection system. Fearful of being prosecuted, professionals were overloading the system with reports of suspected abuse or neglect. Only an eighth of reports were confirmed as abuse, but resources were being swallowed up trying to cope with the reports, at the cost of the kind of less formal social work, such as family support, that could help children.

In the end, the horrific deaths of two children, who had been known to social services, prompted a review of the child protection Services. The Wood Inquiry’s recommendations led to the introduction of a system to help filter tens of thousands of calls to the department and allow social services to focus on those children in most serious danger. The remainder of calls would be diverted to community services.

Dr Ben Mathews, associate professor at the School of Law at Queensland University of Technology, says he fully endorses a legislative duty to report significant abuse, but says such a system needs to be carefully designed and much depends on the “prudent and clear drafting of legislation”. Of vital importance, he says, is making clear to reporters what extent of abuse needs to be reported, rather than simply extending the reporting duties and leaving them vague and ill-defined.

In addition, mandatory reporting should be supplemented by expert multidisciplinary training for those mandated to report abuse concerns. This means these individuals gain vital knowledge about the indicators of mistreatment, how to deal appropriately with disclosures or suspicions of abuse, and the true nature of their reporting duty.

In the case of New South Wales, he says it is too simple to describe the problem there as a case of “laws causing a flood of overreports”. The data show that much of the increase in reports was from the police. The Wood Inquiry showed that much of the so-called “over-reporting” was due to multiple reports about the same group of children. For example, in 2006-2007, more than half of all reports concerned a fifth of the children involved in all reports.

“The Wood Inquiry expressly rejected the claim that the laws cause intolerable over-reporting and rejected the argument that the laws should be abolished,” Mathews says.

The inquiry observed that the number of children who were the subject of a report for the first time had fallen every year since 2001/02.

The inquiry concluded that rather than abolishing reporting laws, the system needed greater effectiveness in reporting (including better training of reporters) and more appropriate treatment of reports.Two major recommendations of the Wood Inquiry were to limit the legislative reporting duty to cases of suspected significant harm, and to implement a greater focus on the referral of more minor cases to community-based services.

These are lessons of major relevance to our Government as it begins to draw up its own plans for mandatory reporting, he says. “Government data from the US, Canada and Australia consistently shows that reports by mandated reporters make a massive contribution to protecting children from severe abuse, neglect [and death]. This applies especially to younger children, who are the most vulnerable of all.”

Source: Irish Times

Allegations of sexual and physical abuse against priests, religious men and women, church employees, volunteers and parishioners more than doubled in 2010 compared with the previous year, according to figures released July 28 in the 2010-11 annual report of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission.

The commission is the agency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales that oversees child protection programs. In all, 92 allegations of sexual and physical abuse were received in 2010 compared with 43 in 2009 and 51 in 2008. Exactly half of the allegations were dismissed after investigations by law enforcement authorities and 41 remain under investigation, the report said.

One resulted in a police warning, two in continuing court hearings and two in prison sentences, according to the report. The report said “non-favorable” media reporting of Pope Benedict’s visit “focused on the scandal of child abuse by members of the clergy and religious.”

The media reports had “profound impacts” on the ability of abuse survivors to “articulate their experiences” and also triggered a more energetic response by church officials to “bring justice and healing” to them, the document said.

Because of the adverse publicity, the report explained that child protection officials were able to openly “describe mechanisms for dealing with allegations and the actions taken where concerns arise.”

Source: The Georgia Bulletin

In an effort to stop repeat offenders, particularly those who target children, a pilot program will open June 23 in Allegheny County, according to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. After a year, if deemed effective, it may be expanded statewide.

Judges hope that channeling sex abuse cases through a specialized court will speed up the process so that “victims and witnesses don’t have to wait before getting their day in court,” said Steve Schell, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.

New York and Ohio have introduced similar courts in recent years.

In western Pennsylvania, the separate court will be composed of judges specializing in sex offender cases. It will focus on creating a uniform system, strengthening accountability and coordinating the management of adults who violate Megan’s Law, a mandated public registry for convicted sex offenders.

“This is a large-scale issue because it involves everything from rapes to minor sex offenses,” said Judge Jeffrey Manning, one of the judges working on the program.

“We’re going to try to make sure that those people who are convicted or plead guilty are immediately accountable.”

The separate court is designed to improve public safety by reducing repeat offenses by convicted sex criminals.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Debra Todd called the specialized court an “innovative approach for achieving consistency in sentencing and managing the difficult population of sex offenders, in our continuing effort to reduce recidivism.”

Programs like the sex offender court have arisen because “people are upset about this issue of sex offenders in their communities,” said Rebecca Thomforde Hauser, associate director of domestic violence and sex offense court programs at the nonprofit Center for Court Innovation in New York.

“It’s a newer kind of arena for the criminal justice system, but there’s a lot of national research and organizations that have been working around how communities can work in a more collaborative way to manage (sex offenders),” Hauser said.

Pennsylvania’s sex offender court will be funded with reallocated tax money, said Schell.

Source: REUTERS

When many think of sex trafficking, they think of prostitutes in Southeast Asia, Nepal, Bangladesh or another faraway country – anywhere but here in the United States, and especially not of our own kids in our own communities.

But it is happening here.

About 100 from the community met for a discussion on the problem of sex trafficking of children in Snohomish County April 28 at Rosehill Community Center.

The League of Women Voters of Snohomish County sponsored the meeting, so that a panel of experts could discuss with the community the Everett-to-Tacoma prostitution circuit, law enforcement efforts and legal challenges, and what help these kids and teens need to recover as victims of sexual abuse.

“Sexual exploitation of children is a hideous problem – we all wish it didn’t happen but it does, and that’s a fact,” said the league’s Barbara Bush. “It’s happening internationally, it’s happening nationally, and it’s happening right here in Snohomish County.”

Child sex trafficking, aka domestic minor sex trafficking, is generally the sexual exploitation of 13- and 14-year-old girls – sometimes younger – who can’t legally consent to sex but are manipulated into having sex with adult men for another adult man’s profit.

Under federal law, the commercial sexual abuse of a minor is a Class B felony, punishable by a minimum of 27 months and up to 10 years in prison. The promoting of the commercial sexual abuse of a minor is a Class A felony, punishable by 7-10 years in prison.

That was not always the case, said Lisa Paul, deputy prosecuting attorney at the Dawson Place Child Advocacy Center.

In 2007, the law was changed from a Class C felony – the lowest of the felony offenses – and just 1-3 months in prison.

“Before the law changed, juvenile prostitution was considered less serious than theft of livestock,” she said. “So you could steal somebody’s cow, and it was considered more serious.”

Local law enforcement has seen prostitution in Snohomish County evolve in the last 5-7 years. Where there were once women in their 20s-40s “turning tricks” to support their drug addictions, there are now teenage girls working for their traffickers or “pimps.”

The scope of the problem is yet unknown. The pimps move their girls from Everett to Seattle to Tacoma, so there is a lot of overlapping of the sex-trafficking cases on record, said Dusty Olson, an advocate of Providence’s Intervention Center for Assault and Abuse.

She said the county had no way of tracking the movement of child victims until two years ago, and that it will be another year before it has any statistics.

“We’re talking about a lot of kids, but I can’t tell you what a lot is,” Olson said. “We don’t know yet.”

However, Olson said it is estimated that 300-500 kids a year are trafficked in Seattle. And with the overlap of victims, she said the numbers in Snohomish County couldn’t be too far off.

The FBI’s Pacific Northwest Innocence Lost Task Force and the Snohomish County Sexual Exploitation and Intervention Network are working to address the local sex-trafficking problem.

“First and foremost, our goal is to rescue them and get them in a safe house and get them out of that lifestyle and, secondly, go after that trafficker and seek a federal sentence,” said Everett Police Department Detective Tim Morgan, a member of the task force.

The challenge of solving child sex-trafficking cases in Snohomish County is that they are never reported. The pimp brainwashes the girls into thinking that law enforcement is the enemy.

If they do go to the police, it’s for domestic assault, and they won’t say the actual problem is prostitution.

Therefore, both the task force and the network are working to train themselves and the community to recognize the signs of children who are at-risk of becoming victims or already are victims of commercial sexual exploitation – and where to send them for help.

“I’ve seen victims with families of single moms, I’ve seen it with single dads, and I’ve seen it with middle class families that seem to have a normal life,” said Olson, co-founder of the network.

Risk factors include a history of sexual abuse, runaways, foster care, crime, poverty and a lack of education and job opportunities.

“People look at that and say, ‘That’s not our community’ or ‘That’s not my kid’ or ‘That’s not my neighborhood,’ but the other risk factors involved are pretty universal to kids,” Olson said.

Kids who go to school or other places by themselves, have access to a computer, want money and consumer goods, desire a romantic relationship, want more independence from their parents, test boundaries and take risks are also vulnerable to child sex trafficking.

The red flags include:

• A younger girl in a relationship with a much older boyfriend

• Money, cell phones, designer clothes, manicures, etc. without an explanation of how they were paid for.

• Change in appearance, including hair, clothing, nails – and sometimes even a changed name.

• Kids who are staying in hotels or traveling a lot without an explanation.

• Visible signs of abuse or specific tattoos.

“These are the things that need to be followed up on and need to be talked about,” Olson said. “Questions need to be asked.”

The task force and network are also working to adapt and coordinate the services available in the community to help the victims, who respond to sexual trauma similarly but not exactly like victims of sexual assault.

The children are difficult to work with because the trafficker has trained them to be difficult, to lie and to mistrust the police and service providers.

They go back and forth from feeling anxious and agitated to completely disconnected from the world.

There is also an incredibly strong psychological bond between the girl and the pimp that proves almost impossible to break.

“They have lost all sense of themselves, and so they completely identify with the pimp’s perspective and don’t know how to function without that individual,” Olson said.

“When we come and say we want you to make your own decisions and be empowered, they don’t know what to do with that. That is scary.”

Progress is slow for the task force and network, but it is still progress, Morgan said. He said they consider it a success if they are able to get a victim to stay in her designated safe house – away from the pimp – for more than a day.

“As far as longer successes, we haven’t gotten to that point,” he said. “We have to celebrate tiny successes or we won’t be doing this for very long.”

Source: mulkiteobeaconnews