For $1 million per child a year, you’d expect unlimited opportunities, stellar care — opulence.
Indeed, governments are at pains to convince taxpayers that group homes for children in state care are “therapeutic” trauma-informed facilities.
But the ABC has unearthed cases of a senior worker contacting a child sex abuser as part of a “safety” check on a child, current sexual exploitation of a girl at risk of death, and one department’s attempt to avoid responsibility for decisions that led to assaults.
Warning: This story contains graphic images and descriptions of abuse.
‘Safety’ check with a child sex abuser
A bloodied sore festers on her cheek, bruises swell on her wrists and abdomen.
This is Saachi Stoneley under the care of the Queensland child protection department at age 14.
While living in residential care homes for children in state care, she is preyed on by men selling the promise of drugs and counterfeit love.
Residential care is an increasingly utilised model whereby child protection departments outsource the care of vulnerable children to agencies running on rostered staff.
In Victoria and Queensland, staff can work with these highly complex kids without having completed the bare minimum — a TAFE certificate — first.
Many children, Saachi among them, would escape these houses notorious for violence, abuse and property destruction.
In April 2021, a senior worker at one of the homes, Be the Change, repeatedly reached out to a man in his 40s who was known to sexually abuse Saachi.
The texts, sent across 10 days to Benjamin ‘Benji’ Stansmore, instructed:
“Hello please tell saachi to call me so I don’t have to call the police.”
Saachi’s mother Siobhan had for months alleged to the police, the department and Be the Change that Stansmore was raping her child.
When Siobhan found out about this “inappropriate” exchange — and the worker’s perceived reluctance to engage the police — she took it up with the department responsible for placing Saachi with Be the Change.
To her disbelief, the department explained it away as a safety check.
“[The senior worker] did contact Mr Stansmore by his mobile telephone as a means of trying to locate Saachi, and he confirmed that Saachi was okay,” a department worker’s email said.
Siobhan found it “insane” because Stansmore was the very person putting her child at risk.
A review by the department later also found Siobhan’s concern “not substantiated”.
It said Saachi had identified Stansmore to be her “boyfriend”, and that part of a safety plan “is to contact all people that many have regular contact with the young person to locate them”.
“…Saachi was able to be located by contacting known people she associates with, however, it is understandable you would not want Saachi in the company of Mr Stansmore — the fact remains she often would be and he was an avenue to establish contact with her and ascertain her level of safety,” the review said.
For more than a year, the department refused to move Saachi from the Fraser Coast in south-east Queensland, where she was being abused.
Last year, she turned 18 and was finally allowed, by law, to tell her story.
In doing so, she is moving on.
“I want people to be educated on what goes on in residential care and child safety.
“And I believe that people should know what happened to me.”
About six months before Saachi went into state care, Siohban had sought help for her daughter’s violent outbursts and suspected conduct disorder.
Somewhere along the wait for a psychiatrist, life at home became so volatile child protection authorities got involved.
The two residential care homes Saachi was moved to were far from the “therapeutic” environment Siobhan says the department had promised.
Within weeks of moving into a group home run by Anglicare, Saachi was pulled onto the merry-go-round of dysfunction, set in motion by kids more streetwise than her.
“It was inconsistent, lonely and a very emotional place … just overall a very, very dark place,” she says.
A skipped day of school morphed into complete absenteeism; occasional drug use turned into ice addiction.
By the time Siobhan spied a red needle mark on Saachi’s neck from drug injections, her daughter’s life had gone through a seismic change.
Siobhan went to police stations in Maryborough and Hervey Bay to report her child was being abused by men who supplied her with drugs.
The ABC has seen more than a dozen emails Siobhan sent to the department between 2020 and 2021, detailing the sexual abuse.
“I sat multiple times in meetings with child safety, begging them to move my daughter away from the people that were exploiting her, and no-one did anything,” Siobhan says.
In one of those meetings, Siobhan and her support person can be heard challenging a department worker about the care provided to Saachi.
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Support worker: So, has there been any change with Be the Change?
Child protection worker: It’s a process.
Support worker: The process is killing our children.
The department worker says she will talk to Be the Change, but Siobhan wants to escalate the matter.
Siobhan: Can we talk … can we bring your management in next time?
Child protection worker: No.
…
Siobhan: My daughter has been molested by multiple paedophiles in the last six months. The drug provision has messed with her mental health, multiple hospitalisations and everything. And you’re saying that we can’t talk to anyone above you, like we can’t bring them in?
By the end of the meeting, Siobhan has broken down in tears:
Siobhan: There are people all over this town videoing her … she is demeaned everywhere she goes. She can’t get off the drugs here because she needs it to cope in this town. We have been telling you guys this since the beginning, since April, May last year.
The department thinks “there are no quick or magic fixes” for Saachi, an email shows.
It explains that relocating a child is “a lengthy process”, and moving Saachi away from her mother may destabilise her further.
But away from the predatory men and chaos of the group home, when Saachi was finally sent to a rehab facility in Brisbane, even the department noted she was doing “amazingly well”.
“I just needed to get away from the scene that I was in, with those people,” Saachi says.
It was during this time that she started seeking justice.
About 17 months ago, Stansmore was convicted of three child sex offences — one of them pertaining to Saachi.
“Once again, you should be incredibly proud of yourself. You have shown great strength, courage and resilience,” a detective wrote to Saachi.
Those words rang hollow, when her mum had for about two years tried to get the authorities involved.
It also transpired that in one of the defining moments of her life, Saachi had become an afterthought.
She was not told of Stansmore’s sentencing until the day it happened, and given less than three hours to cobble together a victim impact statement.
“Again, I am so sorry this is the first you and Saachi are hearing that he is being sentenced. That is not good enough and I will raise my concerns with the DPP Victim Liaison Officer,” a detective wrote to Siobhan.
Siobhan is convinced that by failing to move Saachi away from her perpetrator, the Queensland department helped facilitate her abuse.
“I want my daughter to be compensated for the damages that she’s had to sustain over the years of abuse. I also want an inquiry into what is going on here,” she says.
“The resilience she has shown has been unbelievable.
“I feel so proud.”
The Queensland child safety department could not comment on Saachi’s case due to privacy laws.
It said when a child went missing, “all efforts will be made” to confirm their location and assess their safety.
“When a crime has been committed or we suspect criminal activity is occurring, we report it to police and work with the young person to ensure they get the support they need,” it said.
“We expect the highest level of care from child safety staff, foster and kinship carers, and residential care service providers, and take allegations of neglect or misconduct very seriously.”
The former CEO of Be the Change, which no longer exists, said responding to the ABC’s enquiry would require going through historical records.
“Doing so would compromise the confidentiality and privacy obligations the entity has to its clients. This concern is especially relevant when the client is a minor, as appears to be the case in this instance,” they said.
Anglicare said it had a “robust quality management system” which included detailed policies and processes to ensure the highest level of care.
The Queensland Police Service did not comment on Saachi’s case. It said while police could investigate allegations, the court requires a victim’s corroboration — unless they are dead or cannot communicate.
“All reports and allegations are noted and taken seriously, however, some may not reach the evidentiary threshold to the criminal standard required in court,” it said.
In some parts of Australia, one-third of the children in residential care are feared to be sexually exploited.
Figures from the Victorian children’s commission show last financial year, 156 residential care children were believed to be sexually exploited. The daily average of children in residential care was 472 in the June quarter.
Queensland’s child protection department did not know how many of its almost 2,000 residential care kids were sexually abused last financial year.
It said across the whole system — residential and foster care combined — 21 of 123 sexual abuse reports were found to be substantiated.
The New South Wales government only provided the number of substantiated reports — of 1,445 residential care kids, six were abused by adults and 14 by other children.
Girl with 24/7 supervision goes missing
Victorian woman Christine* fears her daughter will die from the drug-fuelled sexual exploitation she has endured since entering residential care at age 12.
She recalls Emily’s* suffering laid bare the day after Boxing Day in 2023.
Christine was serving pavlova to her last remaining guests, when the phone rang.
The sobs of the woman on the other end took a while to decipher — but Christine knew to expect the worst.
“I thought, ‘This could be it’. Every night I go to bed and I think this could be it,” she says.
In the dead of night, she followed a winding back road to Melbourne.
It was in stark contrast to the fluorescent lights illuminating the hospital corridors she rushed down next.
As soon as she heard Emily’s medical emergency had been attributed to her ongoing sexual exploitation, Christine remembered a meeting days earlier.
During a doctor’s appointment to request antibiotics for Emily, Christine and her friend had disclosed the 15-year-old was being assaulted.
When the doctor said he had to report it to child protection services, Christine’s exasperated friend told him: “Go ahead.”
The doctor was about to discover that Emily had been in child safety’s care for years — and that it was under their watch the sexual exploitation began.
Before she went into state care, child safety services had tried to wrap supports around Emily to address her suicidal behaviour.
But Christine says the department should never have put her in residential care — let alone with children who introduced her to drugs and dealers.
In Emily’s recent case plan, the department acknowledges that “since entering residential care, her risk has continued to increase” and she is at “acute risk of sexual exploitation”.
“She’s been so let down by the system. I think we both have,” Christine says.
“And I’ve let her down. I let her down by asking for help and by accepting help.
“I’ll do anything I can to make a difference in her life, and to have a different outcome that doesn’t end up with her being dead.”
In four years, Emily has been in 11 residential care placements and done at least 15 stints in secure welfare — the most “extreme form” of protective intervention, according to the Victorian government.
Chroming 30 cans a day, ice addiction, disengaged from education for years, sexual assaults — documents paint a confronting picture of her life under child protection services since she was 12.
Over time, Emily has become so vulnerable she cannot live with other children and needs two workers with her at all times.
But despite the 24/7 supervision, she is often missing.
Christine says just days before Christmas, staff saw Emily stumble out of an unknown car.
“She’d obviously overdosed, become unconscious in the car, and the person that dropped her off on the lawn just left her there,” she says.
Christine says although the workers at Emily’s current placement seem more attentive than in previous ones, it may be too late for her child.
“Nothing they do now is going to bring her home. It’s so far gone,” she says.
The Victorian child protection department could not comment on individual cases.
Former Victorian child protection department worker Shannon Miller says single-child placements like Emily’s cost “a huge amount of money”.
It takes years of falling through the cracks to reach that level, he says.
“We’ve got young people who cost a million dollars a year to put in a residential care unit, and you’ve got child protection practitioners that can’t get a $100 gift voucher for a family to get food. It’s just absolutely absurd,” he says.
More than $2 billion was spent last year on residential care services in Australia.
On average, the Victorian government spent over $1 million per residential care child last financial year, a Productivity Commission report shows.
By comparison, it spent $18,068 per child on intensive family support services.
At almost $960 million, the Queensland government had the highest annual residential care expenditure.
It spent $9,667 per child on intensive family support services.
The NSW government did not provide the 2023-24 residential care spending.
Mr Miller left his team manager role about two years ago. He believes there was a sexually exploited child in nearly every residential care home he came across.
“It’s a telling sign of what kind of environment this is to live in,” he says.
“They’re telling us with their behaviours that this is a horrible place to be, and I want to be anywhere else.”
First Nations support worker Laura-Jane Singh says she has raised the issue of sexual exploitation on both a state and a national level.
“I would say, in my experience, the action is inadequate and it often comes too late,” she says.
Year-on-year, the number of children in residential care has risen by about 400 since 2021.
“These kids — because there’s now such a vast number — they’re numbers, they’re files,” Ms Singh says.
“They’re not seen the way other children might be seen.
“I think they’re also considered a problem. And when you make something a problem, it becomes less worthy.”
Fight for justice brings out ‘alters’
Just as former state ward Ebony Terlich had feared, her fight to seek justice had fast turned into a battle for self-preservation instead.
The slightest reminder of her childhood can set off a dissociative episode — a diagnosed psychiatric condition whereby a person has multiple identities, known as alters.
Fresh off the video call with her lawyer, Ebony wrapped her chest into a firm butterfly hug — a soothing technique to calm anxiety.
“I remember my lawyer telling me that I had been known to the department since I was born,” Ebony says.
Her name, demeanour, and even her tone of voice were unrecognisable as she disassociated for the next few days.
It took 15 years for the Victorian child protection department to permanently remove Ebony from harm, despite multiple reports over time.
“I have a lot of anger at the people who really didn’t take stock in that and chose to do nothing — when they were the people who had the power to make me safe,” Ebony says.
When Ebony was 16, the department placed her in group homes run by MacKillop Family Services and the Salvation Army Westcare.
A document shows Ebony was “exposed to prostitution by way of befriending other children who lived in the unit” run by the Salvation Army.
“A younger girl that I was in residential care with had asked me if I wanted to go to St Kilda with her,” she says.
“I was under the impression that we were going to St Kilda to go to the beach.
“What I learned that night was very different.”
It took about a year and a half for the department to accept responsibility — a drawn-out process during which, as documents show, they came to the table, then “refused at last minute” to settle.
“They tried to attempt to say that they were not responsible whatsoever for what had happened to me,” Ebony says.
“That that sat squarely with the residential care unit staff, despite the fact that it was the department that placed me there.
“It left me feeling really hurt and, honestly, ashamed by our government.”
Only when Ebony indicated she would litigate did she receive a “substantial” compensation and an apology last year.
“Please be assured that the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing is committed to ensuring that your experience is not repeated and that children who are subject to child protection interventions or in receipt of care services are treated with humanity, respect and dignity,” department secretary Peta McCammon wrote.
Ebony is described in her files as a “friendly” girl with “considerable intellect”.
“I sometimes wonder: if I had been removed, whether my life would have been any different, and whether I could have grown into my full potential,” the 35-year-old says.
“And I sometimes wonder if I was better off with my biological family and things could have been worse.
“I believe that there needs to be further investigations into how child protection is operating in Victoria and around Australia.”
The department and MacKillop could not comment on individual cases, while the Salvation Army did not respond.
MacKillop said it had co-designed a program that helps residential care staff identify and intervene when a child is at risk of exploitation.
It said over 3,000 staff from 50 organisations across Australia had been trained in the Power to Kids initiative.
The ABC asked departments of the three biggest states what action was being taken to combat sexual abuse and exploitation in residential care.
The Victorian department said it had invested an additional $548 million two budgets ago to improve outcomes for residential care children over four years.
Only 2.4 per cent — or $13.4 million — of that funding is allocated specifically towards action on child sexual exploitation.
The department said that funding went towards improving sexual exploitation detection and intelligence sharing between the department and Victoria Police, increasing the presence of sexual exploitation practice leads and introducing new ones in after-hours service.
The department said its wider funding also had “elements complementary to tackling sexual exploitation”.
The Queensland department was unable to provide the funding figure for addressing sexual abuse. It said the annual child safety budget was $2.3 billion.
The department said the practice advice and support team led a project that identified sexual exploitation by reviewing critical incidents and helped other staff respond to allegations of abuse.
It added that “strong relationships” with police ensured “prompt responses” when exploitation was identified, and “learnings from other jurisdictions” helped to develop child sexual abuse responses in Queensland.
The NSW government did not say how much funding had been allocated to tackling exploitation.
It said staff in out-of-home care and intensive therapeutic care had been trained to respond to child sexual exploitation.
The government also said it had partnered with the police, Sydney University and MacKillop to pilot the Disrupting Child Sexual Exploitation project.
In 2022, it introduced a residential care workers’ register, which aims to “prevent unsuitable people from moving between residential care services”.
*Because Emily is still in state care, we have to abide by Victoria’s child protection laws and change the names of her and her mother Christine. The photos used to tell their story are illustrative.
Credits
- Reporting: Katri Uibu
- Photography: Christopher Gillette, Danielle Bonica and Luke Bowden
- Graphic design: Paul Yeomans
- Digital production: Katri Uibu
- Digital editor: Daniel Miller
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