Foster relatives 'not always best'

A former adviser to the Department for Child Protection wants Aboriginal leaders to help government overhaul the system that uses relatives as foster carers because children are being put at risk.

Associate Professor Ted Wilkes, who was the chairman of the DCP's Aboriginal Reference Group, said the "noble" efforts to keep indigenous children in their culture led to substandard care for some.

_The Weekend West _revealed on Saturday that concerns about the welfare of foster child "Kaylee" were raised just before her death in the Goldfields in August last year, five months after being moved from a carer in Perth and placed with relatives.

The major crime squad and State Coroner are investigating the "suspicious death". It is not known whether anyone at the foster home bore responsibility for the 20-month-old's head injuries.

Professor Wilkes said that though he did not know the details of Kaylee's case, he had been concerned for several years about Aboriginal foster children.

"We all have the noblest of intentions," he said. "We all want to do the right thing and to send our children on the right path but we're faltering.

"There are some kids put into foster care with their relatives and it works well, but there are others where there's not proper scrutiny of the human beings involved and there isn't proper support and invariably the system collapses.

"It's a lot to ask someone to look after another person's child and sometimes these families are coping with their own kids but once foster children come in, they lose the ability to cope.

"We can't just say because it's a member of the extended family, that's the best option. We would think that is the case because it provides kinship, which is important, but that isn't always the case."

DCP chief executive Terry Murphy said last week that all carers were subjected to the same standard of screening and the preference for all children in care was to place them with family if suitable.

Professor Wilkes, one of WA's ambassadors for Children and Young People, called on Aboriginal leaders to form a round- table summit.

He said the community needed to "think outside the box". While he was chairman of the reference group, he had suggested to the DCP that "safe homes" be established under Aboriginal control.

"The (institutional) settings from 50 or 60 years ago could be reshaped in a contemporary way of doing business where Aboriginal leaders and mums and dads could run them and have kids in close proximity to the areas where parents are struggling with poverty and other problems," he said.

"In a town like Port Hedland, in places where mums and dads are doing it hard, they could say, 'My kids are in a safe place where no one is allowed to abuse them and they are getting an education'.

"We Aboriginal leaders need to get together and put forward a response to the Government to get action.

"Let's give the Aboriginal leaders and parents the ability to set up these places so the children are in safe physical structures, then other things like health and education and maternal care can come into place."

We all want to send our children on the right path but we're faltering."Associate Professor

Ted Wilkes