Damning report finds state’s blue card screening system creates unnecessary barriers to placing children with their families
Queensland’s attorney-general, Yvette D’Ath, welcomed the QFCC report, saying ‘we acknowledge we can do more for kinship carers’.Queensland’s attorney-general, Yvette D’Ath, welcomed the QFCC report, saying ‘we acknowledge we can do more for kinship carers’.to be scrapped for First Nations kinship carers after a report found the system relies on “irrelevant information, overpolicing and subjective assessments”.
“Suitability for obtaining a blue card is based on irrelevant information, overpolicing and subjective assessments of an individual’s character by police and other sources at the time of an offence, rather than on the risk of harm to a child,” the report said., says blue card requirements should be abolished for First Nations kinship carers but the government should retain its existing departmental assessment process, which includes criminal history checks.
Lewis said an inability to resolve the “constraints of the current system will mean more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children will continue to be placed with strangers or in residential care instead of with kin”. These proposed changes would have gone beyond kinship carers to also cover those seeking employment working with children. The amendment would have encompassed offences such as stealing, drug trafficking and unlawful entry of a vehicle, but would not apply to more serious offences.
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