12yo pregnancy: 'DoCS should have done more'
By Simon Santow for AM
ABC News
Posted Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:46am AEST
Updated Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:30pm AEST
A political row has erupted in New South Wales over the case of a 12-year-old girl who has become pregnant to her 15-year-old boyfriend.
The girl's father had his pleas for intervention ignored by welfare agencies after learning the two adolescents were sleeping in the same bed at the home of the girl's mother.
From a broken home in the western New South Wales town of Dubbo, the 12-year-old was already living among mental illness and violence and is now pregnant to her teenage boyfriend.
The Department of Community Services (DoCS) stands accused of sitting back and not taking seriously pleas made by the father of the girl to intervene in a situation where pre-teenage pregnancy was a distinct possibility.
In desperation, the father went to police and his local MP to try and prevent what he could see happening.
Police hands were tied, no charges could be laid as both adolescents were under the age of consent and they both argued it was consensual anyway.
New South Wales Community Services Minister Linda Burney admits her department should have done more for the family.
"I am of the view, as is the department, that there should have been more strident intervention than what happened," she said.
"The father did contact Community Services in early March. There was some investigation but clearly not enough was done and I want to acknowledge that.
"This is a very difficult family dynamic and at the time I am advised that the father made the call to Community Services expressing his concern."
Ms Burney says at the time of the complaint the department was dealing with some more serious cases.
"In terms of competing priorities, it was determined that there were other cases more urgent and my advice is that there was some very severe neglect and abuse cases being dealt with at the time," she said.
"But even given that, I acknowledge that DoCS could have done a lot more than what they have done in terms of this young woman."
'Over-stretched system'
Ms Burney says funding in today's State Budget will help to improve what she says is an 'over-stretched' system.
"What I am saying is that one of the reasons that the budget today will deliver $520 million additionally to child protection in New South Wales is because the system is over-stretched," she said.
"I have acknowledged that on a number of occasions."
But the Opposition's community services spokeswoman, Pru Goward, says this is not the only case of its kind.
"I don't think it is an isolated case. I think DoCS often when it gets reports from parents like this, ignores the advice of the family, ignores the advice of the foster carer and prefers to let the child have its head," she said.
"We all know how difficult teenage girls can be but that is not an excuse.
"If the family had been assisted in looking after this girl, if there had been intervention early in the piece, we might not be now facing what is a terrible tragedy for her and her unborn child."
Ms Goward says having enough resources is one thing, but it is entirely another to have confidence that they are being directed to the right people in a timely way.
"The key to this is that the family had a problem and asked DoCS to help them and DoCS' answer was, 'we know best what to do for this child'," she said.
"There is no one agency or person that knows what is best for a teenage girl in these circumstances and the department should have been working with that family instead of against it."
