Sth Australian Coroner is set to deliver his findings on the death of four year-old girl Chloe Valentine.
Belinda and Chloe Valentine.
Source: Supplied
PARENTS responsible for the death of a child should automatically lose any subsequent children from birth, State Coroner Mark Johns has recommended.
His findings in the Chloe Valentine inquest are scathing of the “broken and flawed” Families SA agency, and include more than 20 recommendations for widespread reform to its culture of “mediocrity”.
He said Families SA social workers “flagrantly disregarded” their legal responsibilities regarding the power to remove children from abusive or neglectful parents.
Mr Johns said Families SA was repeatedly hoodwinked by Chloe’s manipulative, drug-addicted mother, and the law should be amended so the paramount consideration was keeping children safe, not keeping families together.
Permanent adoption should be considered as an option in child protection cases due to a lack of willing foster parents.
But he stressed that Families SA should first look to loving, caring grandparents who were more than capable of giving neglected children all they needed in life.
He also recommended an expansion of income management programs across the state, said cases should be allocated to particular social workers from start to finish, and workers should be educated on proper note-taking.
Mr Johns announced his findings and recommendations having heard 26 days of evidence, from 39 witnesses, over five months.
Chloe died in January 2012, aged four, after her mother and her mother’s partner repeatedly forced her to ride a 50kg motorbike around their backyard.
Ashlee Jean Polkinghorne — who laughed as she filmed Chloe’s distress — and Benjamin Robert McPartland are serving minimum four-year jail terms for their crime.
However, the inquest heard Chloe’s death “was no accident” and could have been avoided had Families SA not “largely ignored” her needs and the risks to her safety.
Outside court after the findings were announced, Chloe’s grandmother Belinda Valentine wept as she called for the State Government and Families SA to immediately act on the coroner’s recommendations.
“These are steps that can be taken now and I think it’s really important that we start making the move now,” Mrs Valentine said.
“For us, our worst nightmare was Ashlee having another child and not having the power to protect that child.”
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During his inquest, Mr Johns investigated Families SA’s handling of 21 child abuse notices filed, about Chloe and Polkinghorne, in the years preceding the little girl’s death.
The first of those was filed before Chloe was even born, warning authorities she was an “at risk infant” due to Polkinghorne’s history of homelessness, fighting and drug abuse.
The last notification was lodged just months before her death.
Many of those notifications were classified as “tier 2”, meaning “an investigation is required” and Chloe could have been removed by Families SA workers.
Chloe Valentine. Picture: supplied by her father, Tom Lagdon.
Source: Supplied
Chloe lived in squalid conditions
Multiple witnesses told the inquest the agency failed to act upon their concerns and reports, even though the little girl was living a transient life with Polkinghorne.
They revealed the duo lived in squalid, rat-infested homes, that Polkinghorne was a drug user who ignored her child’s needs and she convincingly lied to welfare agencies.
They dubbed Polkinghorne “very good at lying and hiding things” from social workers, including her drug use and the poor state of her accommodation.
Families SA took ‘softly, softly’ approach to Polkinghorne
Families SA staff admitted they took a “softly, softly” approach to Polkinghorne in the hope she would “stop lying and engage” with support programs.
Instead of condemning her illegal habit, the agency drafted an agreement under which Polkinghorne promised to find a sober person to care for Chloe whenever she took drugs.
Despite her addiction, Polkinghorne was never required to undergo drug testing — Mr Johns accused Families SA of finding the task “just too hard”.
When Polkinghorne left Chloe in the care of a 15-year-old girl, Families SA arranged for a taxpayer-funded chauffeured car to return her to the “paralytically drunk” young mother.
In early 2009, Families SA dubbed Polkinghorne’s parenting “less than perfect” but “good enough” and above the threshold needed to remove Chloe from her care.
Later that year the agency learned she was living with a violent, convicted sex offender but did not remove her, as policy required his privacy be respected.
Families SA subsequently closed its high-risk file on Chloe despite her mother’s homelessness and the fact the child had not been sighted by workers for a month.
The agency did not share its knowledge of Polkinghorne’s failings with other support groups, and she went on to harass, threaten and intimidate support workers who tried to help her.
For a time, Chloe’s file was handled by a student social worker because Families SA deemed it “low risk” after she and Polkinghorne moved out of the sex offender’s home.
The student’s supervisor subsequently revealed she had resigned from Families SA because it was a “devastating” place to work, and that helping families was “practically impossible”.
South Australian State Coroner Mark Johns.
Source: News Limited
Supervisor put ‘positive spin’ on case
She admitted putting “a positive spin” on Chloe’s case file so she could close it, but blamed the Youth Court for being “lenient” on teen mothers and making it difficult to remove children.
The supervisor insisted Families SA’s “therapeutic” program would have worked for Chloe and Polkinghorne if not for resourcing issues and changes in leadership.
Chloe’s respite carer recalled a chubby, loving, gorgeous little girl far too used to both pain and the “horrific” squalor in which she lived.
A Families SA welfare check on Chloe, weeks after her case was closed, was roundly criticised as “substandard” during a fiery exchange between a social worker and Mr Johns.
He subsequently warned Families SA’s lawyers he would order an SA Police investigation if the agency continued to fail to hand over key documents from Chloe’s case file.
Workers who checked on Chloe in 2011, meanwhile, gave evidence her situation was “not as severe” as other cases in their workload.
Former policy director slams Families SA
Families SA’s former policy director slammed the agency, saying Chloe should have been removed after the very first child abuse notification.
He dubbed Families SA “broken toxic and seduced into mediocrity”, and called for the social work profession to be regulated as it is in other countries.
One of the agencies supervisors conceded “oversights” in the actions of staff but insisted rectifying them would not have changed Chloe’s fate.
Another said she was never given “the full picture” of Chloe’s ordeal but, even if she had been, only “may have” recommended she be removed.
The Youth Court, meanwhile, dismissed Families SA’s claim that getting orders to remove children was “difficult”.
It dubbed such claims “quite fanciful” as the agency had successfully applied to remove children almost 2000 times in five years, without a single refusal.
Chloe’s grandmother, Belinda Valentine, outside the Coroners Court.
Source: News Corp Australia
Chloe’s grandmother speaks out
Chloe’s grandmother, Belinda Valentine, told the inquest she does not blame Families SA for the little girl’s death, but believes it failed in its duty of care.
Two social workers were recalled to give further evidence — the first denied she had lied to the inquest while the second admitted some of her testimony was “inaccurate”.
Department for Education and Children’s Services chief executive Tony Harrison said Chloe should have been removed as an infant, in 2008, to “circuit-break” the “chaos” of her life.
MORE TO COME
Chloe Valentine inquest findings: Coroner lashes Families SA
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