Three young teenagers have been removed from foster care placements in Northern Tasmania following allegations of unsuitable living conditions.
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It is believed that one of the teenagers has been placed in a youth refuge and the other two are temporarily back with their families.
Bass Greens MHA Andrea Dawkins said it was believed that the children involved in the matter did not attend school this year.
She said an urgent review was needed to identify specifically what went wrong in this foster care case.
“There are many questions to be answered about how a residential care home with such highly at-risk teenagers can be allowed to get worse over months on the department's watch,” Ms Dawkins said.
“It’s very unclear what behavioral management strategies were in place, and whether any of the teens were receiving any sort of therapeutic treatment or support to re-engage with education, training and family in a positive way.
“The minister needs to explain what steps are being taken to ensure incidents like this – where children feel unsafe, property is destroyed and support staff assaulted – don’t happen again.”
The house is managed by CatholicCare as part of its therapeutic residential care programme.
The organisation confirmed that the house had been closed down after advice from Tasmania Police.
CatholicCare Tasmania acting-chief operating officer Teresa Whyte said this was the first time the organisation had dealt with this sort of issue since starting the program two years ago.
“We have strategies in place to identify and manage situations that arise,” she said.
“We are conducting a review to identify any opportunities for programme improvement in an effort to reduce the likelihood of future disruption to the provision of services.”
Children and youth services deputy secretary Ginna Webster, from the Health and Human Services Department, said the department was unable to comment on individual cases.
“Reporting of individual cases in a small community like Tasmania can lead to identification of the people involved and if that occurs it is a breach of the act,” she said.
“Often children that come into care, come from unstable backgrounds and have challenging behaviours.”