Child Protection

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (14:33): My question is to the Minister for Child Protection. Has the minister or her agency taken any action to increase checks on vulnerable children to ensure their welfare? If so, what are those actions?

The Hon. R. SANDERSON (Adelaide—Minister for Child Protection) (14:33): I thank the member for her question. During this unprecedented time of the COVID pandemic, changes have been made of course. It is harder to spend time with children because we are all subject to the same isolation principles, which are that you can have groups of up to 10, but we know it is 1.5 metres away and certain numbers within a four square metre distance. They were stronger. They have relaxed slightly because we have had zero for seven days in a row, which is fantastic, and I congratulate the Chief Medical Officer and the Premier on their handling of this very difficult situation.

Because things have been different, I have actually had the time to ring all the non-government organisations that we deal with. We rely on them as foster care agencies, and they have direct contact with the foster carers. I have gone out of my way to speak to all of them at length to find out: is there anything more we can do? How can we help them? Are they getting enough information? They actually all, without fail, gave glowing reports of my department's handling of this COVID pandemic. They were very happy with the amount of information coming out: the policies, the clarity around supports that were available.

We were the first state in Australia to act by putting out the $200 carer payments per child. That has now been copied in Victoria. We have had two community services ministers (CSM) meetings nationwide so we could discuss what we are all doing, and we are all facing the same issues. We have had to change the way that access visits have been held because of our responsibility and duty of care not only to the children but to the foster or kinship carers who are looking after them. We have changed the method, so a lot of those are now done online or over the phone.

We know we have all had to do that. We are all having meetings in different ways. We are all changing the way that we do things, with the hope that after this we will all come out better and stronger than before.