Street kids and State wards

Press, 19 August 1985, Page 20

Street kids and State wards

Police concern that a “refuge” for street kids is being used by State wards on the run will not be lessened by the comments of one of the youth workers involved. After two absconders from the Kingslea Girls’ Home had been found at the house last week — the latest of several occasions on which runaways have been found at the house — one of the organisers of the “refuge” said that he and his colleagues were concerned about the number of runaways who turned up at the house, but were “not in a position to tell them what to do.” This is an invitation to absconders.

The comment that the first priority of the youth workers is the safety of the street kids and getting them off the streets may seem plausible enough; advising runaways from

Social Welfare homes to go back — and taking them in without notifying the authorities if they demur — is not enough. It does not relieve the youth workers of their obligations under the law or absolve them from the liability of penalty for harbouring absconders. On a more practical level, it must raise questions about what the adults running the house hope to accomplish. Encouraging or abetting State wards to absent themselves from lawful custody cannot be considered to be in the best interests of those young people. Nor can it be in the best interests of street kids that they mix with absconders from Social Welfare homes and so learn, at an early age, not only a contempt for authority but that some adults will help in the flouting of it.