Fifteen-year-old Kate – not her real name – was seven when she was removed from her family. Her mother, who had drug and alcohol problems, left Kate and two younger siblings with people she called babysitters. But they were actually just “some of her drunk friends”, Kate says.
“She left us there for a week or so,” Kate told BuzzFeed News. “But when they couldn’t look after us any more, they dropped us off out the front of our house.”
Kate managed to find a way into the house, but her mother didn’t return home. After a few days neighbours found the kids, who were placed into foster care soon after. Kate says she later found out that her mum had been gang-raped in the meantime, suffering injuries that required surgery.
In the years since, Kate – who is Aboriginal – has lived in 14 foster homes and about seven residential houses. None of her foster families were Indigenous. She’s legally in the care of the NSW family and community services minister Pru Goward.
In Sydney’s CBD last week she came across a protest outside parliament against amendments to the state’s child protection laws proposed by Goward. The government says the amendments will help children like Kate who bounce from foster home to foster home.
The law would make it easier to find a permanent placement for children in care by setting a two-year limit on the time families have to win their children back after removal, and making it easier for guardians to adopt kids they’re looking after.
Even though she’s been through so many different homes, Kate is hoping the law doesn’t pass. It scares her, because she is expecting a child of her own in next July.
She plans to raise the baby with its father, who is also 15 and Aboriginal. He wants to find work in construction, and they’re planning to get an apartment, with the help of an Aboriginal youth services program.
“By the time we get an apartment we will know the gender and that’s when we’ll start buying nappies and clothes and stuff,” she said. They’ll be supported by the father’s family and the youth services program.
But as Kate enters her second trimester of pregnancy, the debate around the child protection law is making her nervous.
“Because I’m a DOCS kids myself I’ll be on what they call the danger zone, DOCS will be on me 24/7,” she said. “And because me and my partner are Aboriginal, it’ll probably be taken.”
Her Aboriginal identity “means a lot”, she says. “Everyone pictures us as bad. So I want to show people that Aboriginals aren’t just bad." She thinks raising a happy family is one way to do that.
The debate about the law makes her “scared” of what will happen if her baby is removed. She’s afraid that if it passes, she won’t be able to win her child back or keep in contact if it’s taken.
When Kate posted a flyer from the rally on Facebook, she says her other Aboriginal friends in the care system reacted with fear and anger.
There’s another reason why she is sceptical of the plan to make adoptions easier. Kate’s youngest two siblings, who are seven and four, have been adopted into the same family (her other two siblings live together with another foster family). She didn’t know about the adoption before it happened, and she’s not allowed any in-person contact with them. With a lawyer’s help, she’s considering going to court to try to gain access to them.
“They mean a lot,” she said of her siblings. “I’d do anything to have a family.”
Kate has been living in a residential house in Western Sydney for the last month – she says it’s the best she’s been in so far – after running away from her last residential house and spending a few weeks on the streets and in crisis accommodation. She has no contact with her mother, who is in and out of jail.
If she pictures the best version of her future in a year or two, this is what Kate says she sees: “I have a nice, happy family, and my siblings can all come together and I get to see them.”
The Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Amendment Bill passed the upper house last week, and is expected to return to the lower house for debate later today.