The NSW Ombudsman has called on the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) to improve its monitoring and reporting of children who present alone to homelessness services.
Tabling his report More than shelter – outstanding actions to improve the response to children presenting alone to homelessness services, Ombudsman Paul Miller said that of the 2,379 children who presented alone to Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) in 2021–22, almost half (1,072 or 45 per cent) needed accommodation, and less than half of them received it (483 or 45 per cent).
“More than a quarter of the children are Aboriginal,” Mr Miller said.
“More than 10 per cent of the children who present to SHS alone are on care and protection orders – that is, they are children in out-of-home care (OOHC) whose responsible ‘parent’ is the Minister for Families and Communities.”
Mr Miller said he assessed what DCJ had done to improve the response to children who presented alone to homelessness services since his Office first reported on the issue in 2018, “the second report was in 2020; this is the third.”
“All three reports demonstrate the scarcity of available and reliable information about these children – who they are, why they are presenting alone to SHS, what services (if any) they are provided, and what outcomes are achieved,” the Ombudsman said.
“A particularly concerning issue identified in this report is that we have been unable to source, from DCJ or elsewhere, any reliable data on children under 12 who may have presented to SHS on their own,” he said.
“We don’t know if that is a problem, and if so, how big of a problem.
“DCJ’s policy now expressly contemplates that unaccompanied children under 12 may be seeking homelessness services.”
Mr Miller said DCJ had implemented some, but not all, of the 2020 report recommendations.
He said the Department made positive progress by publishing a revised, stronger policy on its role and responsibilities, and those of youth homelessness services, to children who present alone to the services.
“However, the necessary data is not being collected to show whether the policy is working as intended,” Mr Miller said.
“DCJ has not implemented all previous recommendations to improve monitoring and reporting, despite saying it supports them,” he said,
“This lack of outcomes evidence reflects a broader and longstanding gap in what is known about unaccompanied homeless children, about their needs and what happens to them.
“What little we do know, does not give us confidence that the revised policy is achieving significant practical improvements.”
The Ombudsman’s 34-page report can be accessed at this PS News link.
