At June 2018 there were 3,695 children in out-of-home care and 3,402 on care and protection orders in South Australia. Many of those children will have thrived in stable, safe and loving placements. Supported by dedicated adults, many will have made the hard journey back from trauma and neglect, developing strong identities and building friendships. Some will have excelled at school, in sport, music or the arts.
However, it is also true that for many children our state continues to seriously fail its obligations as parent.
In the Year in Review 2017-18*, the Guardian considers some of the successes and the delays in the child protection reform process that still leave many children in less-than-ideal circumstances. She looks at the slow transition to a system based on prevention and early intervention, to improvements in foster and kinship care services and to the ongoing problems challenging residential and emergency care. Therapeutic care for all children as envisioned by Commissioner Nyland and significant progress in listening to the voices of children in care still seem some way off.
The Year in Review 2017-18 is now available for download.
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*The Year in Review 2017-18 uses material originally published in the 2017-18 Annual Report
