AUSTRALIA
A coronial inquest into the suicide of a 14-year-old girl has been told South Australia lacks adequate services for children in state care who require ongoing treatment for complex mental health issues.
Deputy state coroner Jayne Basheer is examining the circumstances surrounding the life and death of Heidi Singh, who was fatally electrocuted near Noarlunga train station in August 2014.
Her body was found by police near the train tracks approaching the station, less than two hours after she had run away from home.
The inquest heard Heidi had her case closed by Families SA three times in the lead-up to her death, despite consistent incidents of self-harm, violence towards others, drug overdoses and chronic suicidal behaviour.
On Tuesday, clinical director of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), Dr Prue McEvoy, told the inquest that SA lacked services which could provide ongoing therapeutic care for children in state care with complex mental health problems.
"That's the dilemma at the moment," she said. "In the system I think there isn't enough therapeutic care, particularly for children like Heidi coming into care quite late in their life.
"They are going to have multiple problems and placing them in a residential care facility where there are eight or nine other young people with similar multiple problems is not ideal either."
Dr McEvoy said it was a "huge issue for the Department of Child Protection" and that other states had better models for assessing the mental health care children like Heidi require.
"Smaller settings, less rotational staff, high levels of training for the staff... it's really about reducing the number of children in placements," she said. "What we have at the moment is inadequate and obviously the foster care system has not kept up with a number of children coming into care."
Greater funding needed during early life, inquest hears
Heidi was born with foetal alcohol syndrome and was taken in just days after her birth by foster carers, who at one point housed 11 vulnerable Aboriginal children.
The court heard Families SA – which has since been renamed as the Department for Child Protection – stepped in due to overcrowding in the house.
Heidi was eventually placed in state care in June 2014, and lived in emergency accommodation run by HenderCare at Christies Beach.
In the two-and-a-half months leading up to her death, Heidi was admitted to hospital numerous times for violent outbursts and self-harming episodes, but the court heard she was discharged each time to return to the emergency accommodation facility.
The deputy coroner said she was "grappling" with what options were available for children like Heidi at that time.
"In South Australia there is no facility that provides consistent care that is by the same workers, that provides skilled care... and provides that nurturing wrap-around service that the child would need in order to feel safe," Ms Basheer said. "That can't be provided by HenderCare and emergency accommodation and it can't be provided by community residential care."
Dr McEvoy said greater funding and energy needed to put into services for children in the zero to five age bracket to address their mental health needs from the earliest age.
She said there was also a lack of child and adolescent psychiatrists in South Australia.
"Psychiatry is a very expensive resource, so again, someone needs to fund that."
By Rebecca Opie
20 February 2018
