roderick best 6th world congress on family law and children’s rights 17 – 30 march 2013 sydney...
TRANSCRIPT
Roderick Best
6th World Congress on Family Law and Children’s Rights
17 – 30 March 2013Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre
Child heritage vs child familial identity
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Is the legal status of the relationship between the carer and the child relevant when waiting to preserve the child’s identity and permit a long term stable placement
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Continuum of legal relationships for a child away from parents
• Foster care
• Guardianship
• Parenting orders
• Adoption
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Importance of identity and culture
• UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Aboriginal Placement Principles
• Cultural Planning
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Director-General, DoCS vs D (2007) NSWSC 762
• Removal near time of birth
• Single placement to time of judgement when child is 4 years
• Sudanese birth parents
• Anglo Celtic carers
• No anticipated restoration
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Director-General, DoCS Vs D
• Strong connection with ethnicity and culture of origin
• Attachment
• Adoption vs parenting orders
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Adoptions
• Establishes a new family• Severs significant links with birth family – but
‘open’ adoption• Best outcomes the younger the child is adopted• Best outcomes with known adoptive parents• High levels of emotional security• Strong sense of belonging• Greater perseverance• Contact encouraged
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Tracey (2011) NSWCA 43
• Lives with family in Cambodia for first 14 months
• Travels to Australia where put in care following mothers immediate incarceration
• Placed with mother and adult daughter as carers: neither Khmer
• No anticipated restoration
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Fostering
• Limited parenting rights
• Best outcomes for older children coming into care
• Difficulties with multiple placements and poorer health and education outcomes
• Insecurity in placement vs clear connections with birth family
• Strength through involving kin
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Conclusion
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Promote legal relationship that is child centred by balancing range of issues for child’s welfareincluding:
• Stability• Secure loving relationship• Cultural identity
Thank you
Cartoons courtesy The New Yorker
and Peanuts Worldwide LLC
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