Duty of care lapses by officialdom on child protection

Revelations that government officers failed to conduct face-to-face inquiries investigating allegations made by whistleblowers and former students of systemic control, abuse, and forced communal living at the Redeemer Baptist School in North Parramatta are another cloud over the protection of children in NSW.

The Department of Communities and Justice instead relied on phone assessments and referrals to other agencies to clear child welfare reports at the school. The allegations involved 15 risks of significant harm notifications involving students as far back as 2004. None of the reports prompted on-the-ground or face-to-face field assessments.

Under NSW law, a child is deemed at risk of significant harm if there are safety or welfare concerns due to a wide range of categories including psychological harm and neglect. DCJ declined to confirm which categories the reports about Redeemer fell under, confirming only that they involved children enrolled at the school.

The failure to visit the school and talk with students came to light in replies the department gave to a parliamentary committee inquiry into Redeemer that examined the school’s governance, financial structure, student safety and oversight by government agencies.

The inquiry into the private school was triggered by a joint Herald and 60 Minutes investigation that exposed allegations the school denied teachers wages and enforced extreme control over students, dictating underwear choices and forcing students to live with staff, including the school principal.

At the time, we noted Redeemer may seem an exemplar of private school education, but its academic achievements, state-of-the art facilities and mid-range $10,000-a-year fees concealed a darker reality that raised serious allegations of control, exploitation and questionable financial dealings.

Dozens of former students, school staff and grandchildren of founding church members described an institution that engineered lives, vetoed careers and marriage options and controlled discretionary spending. Redeemer is run by volunteers – members of the ministry order of Redeemer Baptist Church, a fundamentalist, patriarchal community controlled by a handful of omnipotent and intertwined families.

A spokesperson for Redeemer Baptist School told the Herald’s Emily Kowal the institution took its child safety obligations extremely seriously and held an “unblemished record of compliance with both state and federal regulators” over its 45-year history. He said the school and church were “separate entities and should not be conflated”.

However, Redeemer has a chequered history.

In 1981, the then-Department of Youth and Community Services banned the Redeemer Baptist Community from caring for children in substitute care following concerns over isolation and family separation. But Redeemer did not stop there: the church became an unregistered community school, before being accredited by the Department of Education in 1983.

Incredibly, the DCJ was unable to confirm if the 1981 ban surfaced during later child protection reports.

Given such a track record, the most obvious question is why no action was taken by departments and agencies responsible for child protection in NSW.

The official failures seem staggering. The parliamentary inquiry received some 300 submissions. They remain accusations at present. But other safety net failures will undoubtedly come to light when it resumes on Monday.

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.