NSW ministers will gather for a special cabinet meeting to discuss gendered violence amid disturbing revelations about the conditions facing children in care.
Friday’s meeting comes after 28-year-old mother and childcare worker Molly Ticehurst was farewelled at a funeral in Forbes, where she was allegedly murdered by an ex-partner who was on bail accused of stalking, rape and animal cruelty.
Ms Ticehurst is among dozens of women killed this year, with a tragically long line of other women before them, Families and Communities Minister Kate Washington said.
“Those women have often left behind children and they are often the silent victims in domestic and family violence,” she told reporters on Thursday.
“It is also one of the main causes for children entering into the child protection system.
“I will certainly be ensuring that the voices of children are being heard.”
Her comments follow the release of an interim report into the state’s emergency accommodation by the NSW Advocate for Children and Young People, in which children described woeful conditions in care and feelings of isolation and disconnection.
An urgent six-month review aims to uncover ways to end current emergency arrangements and put kids in safe homes, Ms Washington said.
The system relies on emergency legal interventions which come too late for families and privatised for-profit providers, Greens youth justice spokeswoman Sue Higginson said.
“The only way out of this crisis is to invest in and empower families and communities and ensure they can care for kids in the way that every parent wishes to and every child deserves,” she said.
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