The boy’s death was among 70 highlighted in a report that reveals how children are slipping through a system that has “forgotten how to care”.
The boy’s death was among 70 highlighted in a report that reveals how children are slipping through a system that has “forgotten how to care”.
By William Davis and Fraser Barton
February 11, 2025 — 7.48pm
Living out of a cardboard box, a child with no food or clean clothes died on the street in Queensland.
The homeless boy’s death was among 70 highlighted in a report that reveals how children are being lost across a residential care system that has “forgotten how to care”.
The boy, who entered care in early adolescence after his sole parent’s death, had been exposed to issues including domestic violence and abuse.
He spent hours unsupervised each day after being moved to a short-term residential placement, often returning in the early hours of the morning affected by substances, Queensland’s Child Death Review Board says in its 2023-24 annual report.
Before his death, the boy had four different primary placements, spent 12 nights in a watchhouse, and another nine in youth detention.
“He was homeless, had no safe place to sleep, was living out of a cardboard box, had no place to shower, no clean clothes and no food to eat,” the report says.
What we’re seeing is … children moving from place to place and being lost into a system that has forgotten how to care.
Child Death Review Board board chair Luke Twyford
“Adults would at times exploit the boy, providing him with drugs in exchange for undertaking criminal acts.”
The boy was among a string of examples highlighted in the report by the board that reviews the deaths of children known to the child protection system in their last 12 months.
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It revealed that for too many of the young people highlighted in the report, residential care was unable to meet their needs for “connection, love, safety and stability”.
The report makes nine recommendations, with a strong focus on the system’s role as a parent and how it responds to children and families in need.
It calls for mental health support for all children in care.
Evidence presented in the report suggests some referrals to services are closed if the children are not actively engaging.
“I’ve certainly met many great workers in good houses who are doing their best,” Child Death Review Board chair Luke Twyford said.
“What I am very clear on is that the design of the system is wrong.”
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Twyford called on the state government to set up more prevention services to identify why children entered the child protection system.
The number of children in residential care across Queensland has risen from 951 in June 2019 to 1763 in June 2023.
Of the 70 deaths reviewed, 29 were attributed to natural causes, five were the result of assault and neglect, three were attributed to drowning, six were suicide, eight were transport related, and seven were caused by other non-intentional injuries. Twelve were so far unexplained.
At least 27 of the children were Indigenous, and 45 were under the age of nine.
Among many, domestic and family violence, methamphetamine use, and housing instability were identified as relevant to their circumstances.
“We are paying people to create documents and plans and safety assessments, but no one is clearly performing a loving and caring parental role, and that has to change,” Twyford said.
“What we’re seeing is people performing transactional roles, children moving from place to place and being lost in a system that has forgotten how to care.”
Twyford is also overseeing a review of Queensland’s child protection system after significant failures were identified in the case of one of Australia’s worst paedophiles.
With AAP
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