Jun 5, 2016

Home Alone

I thought this one would be interesting. How old is 'old enough'? How would you know? Well, it's kind of complicated and it depends on a lot of things before that can be clear to you.

Lets's start by looking at the law.

Depending on which state you live in, in Australia, the laws are different about leaving children home alone.

Here's the gist of every state:

ACT-no legal age for leaving a child home alone.

NSW- No legal age for leaving a child home alone. Children under 2 must never be left unattended.

NT- no legal age for leaving children home alone. Carers are responsible for children under 16.

QLD - Parents of children under the age of 12 must not leave their children home alone for an unreasonable amount of time.

SA- No legal age for leaving a child home alone

TAS- No legal age for leaving a child home alone and not for an unreasonable amount of time

VIC- No legal age for leaving a child home alone

WA- no legal age for leaving children home alone. Carers are responsible for children under 16. Carers can be charged for children left alone in cars or children who have experienced trauma or abuse from being left home alone.

With considerations to all these states, in every instance the parent or carers are also responsible for that child's care while they are away so the safety of the home environment, food and any other needs that child has is also taken in consideration when deciding if a child is at risk of serious harm. This also means that if something happens to the child, by no fault of the parents the parent is still held responsible because they had left the child home alone.

I found this topic particularly interesting as I would of thought any child protection authority in any state would have some clear cut boundaries on children being left home alone. As seen above, QLD appears to be the only state that has an age thresh-hold for an offence. I'm not sure what the minimum penalty is but maximum penalty is three years imprisonment. In the UK it is 10 years.

Maybe your wondering where I sit with this one or where Family and Community Services (FaCS-formerly known as Department of Community Services, DOCS) sit with this one. Maybe you are indifferent or you don't really care, or already know. Maybe this doesn't affect you. I'm going to tell you anyway.

I have a young man in yr7, at high school. I've left him home alone lots of times, such as before and after school. He does ok. He calls me if he needs to, sometimes too much. He has things to do when I'm away and he knows all the safety rules like not leaving the house and not using the swimming pool when I'm away. I've had a friend freak out when they find this out but I've also heard people telling me they also have friends who leave their 5 and 7 year old home alone on school holidays. I figure maybe I'm in the middle somewhere. I would never leave my primary school age children home alone, I'd rather pour out the stacks of money on childcare and I already am. I'm just used to it.

I heard some people can't pay though. A couple of years ago I about a family that leave their 7 children home alone overnight, and regularly so they could go out drinking and take drugs. Neither of the parents were working at the time and they weren't able to afford a baby sitter. I was a bit concerned. I called FaCS and had a little chat about it with them. The eldest was 12 at the time and the youngest was only 1. The six younger kids had been left in the care of the eldest. Now, if I know the story right, because I had not been in the home I was not able to identify the hazard but had serious concerns about the 1 year old FaCS were only concerned about the 1 year old, even though the other children were aged 3.5, 5, 7, 8, 9. The family at the time, continued to care for their children after the report but as a result no longer leave their youngest home without an adult. They were able to continue leaving their children home alone but never overnight. There's some other stuff going on there but thats another story.

It's case by case for every FaCS response. Still, as a parent, sometimes it feels like theres no clear cut guidelines. I've also read quite a few parenting forums and there are a lot of children who are home alone, usually after school or on school holidays. In most forums, the youngest is usually about 5 or 7. Some parent's boast that their kids have cleaned the house and cooked dinner.

I'm still a bit funny about the whole thing. Do you ever think about it or leave any children home alone? Do you know how FaCS would respond to your case?

I've got some tips. I don't know if they would be of any use to you:

Wait till the child or young person is old enough to look after themselves
Never leave a child under 2 alone
make sure your home is safe and hygienic and stocked with a wide variety of food
Find alternatives if you can such as child care, babysitting, friends, their friends or take them with you
consider how the child or young person feels about being left home alone
Make sure you can contact them and they can contact you
Make some clear rules. If they can't follow them they probably aren't ready
Make sure your child knows how to use and care for keys
Let your neighbours know.
practice with shorter times first

In my case, my son's school is also aware. This is what actually freaked my friend out. My friend was sure this would be a bad thing and was under the belief that the school would find this unusual and neglectful of me.

So when does a child protection authority become involved? In NSW, FaCS, our child protection authority investigates or becomes involved in matters relating to child protection when there has been a report indicating a Risk of Serious Harm (ROSH report). Anyone can call FaCS and make a report although it's true that Mandatory Reporters have significant weight and value when making reports compared to the average citizen, although all reports are considered. FaCS will find high significance in reports from a day care centre compared to an expartner but it also depends on what is said in the report such as knowledge of weapons, bruising, additional witnesses and of course there's only a certain number of unexplained absences a child can have per year before this is also reported to FaCS. What they really want to know is if the child's life in danger right now and all reports are taken seriously.

FaCS policy on Significant Harm defines it as:

What is meant by "significant" in the phrase "to a significant extent" is that which is sufficiently serious to warrant a response by a statutory authority, irrespective of a family's consent.

What is significant is not minor or trivial, and may reasonably be expected to produce a substantial and demonstrably adverse impact on the child's or young person's safety, welfare, or wellbeing.

In the case of an unborn child, what is significant is not minor or trivial and may reasonably be expected to produce a substantial and demonstrably adverse impact on the child

Risk of Significant Harm itself can be identifiable by forms of abuse, neglect, harm to self or others and psychological abuse. You can get an idea of what this covers within the Mandatory Reporter Guide (MRG). There's an online version of it here. The MRG is a an online tool provided by the NSW Government which helps Mandatory Reporters understand if they need to report or not. This is to ensure cases that require other services or other forms of support are not over reported and Risks of Significant Harm are not under reported. Anyone can use the MRG, it's like a survey, it asks questions. You answer them and by the end of the questionnaire it gives you advice on what you should do next. Cool huh?

Did you know that if you work in a Community Service that requires you to have a Working with Children Check you are a mandatory reporter? You are also a mandatory reporter if your employer informs you that you are. Did you know you can actually explore the online MRG and it doesn't actually generate a report? Go have a look and click on everything if it satisfies your curiosity. There's also a printable copy if that's how you like it.

I think I'm done here.

Happy New Week

-Mez