They told 7NEWS.com.au they have been failed by Child Safety Queensland.<\/p>\n
The Queensland Government is sitting with recommendations from an inquiry into the Child Safety system, which Attorney-General Deb Frecklington called \u201cneglected\u201d when the landmark report exposed failures in June.<\/p>\n
But how that neglect manifests in the daily lives of vulnerable children creates trajectories too often misunderstood, one expert told 7NEWS.com.au.<\/p>\n
Queensland mother-of-two Deanna Paylor, 21, told 7NEWS.com.au she entered child protection \u201cfrom birth\u201d.<\/p>\n
By the age of five, she had been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder \u2014 a rare stress-related condition<\/a> caused by social neglect and maltreatment, which causes significant behavioural and emotional impacts including trust issues.<\/p>\n \u201cI was always misbehaving or, you know, like lashing out because I never had that one stable home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t even know how I did it. I just think I was living in survival mode. I was surviving off adrenaline.\u201d<\/p>\n Soon after turning 12, Paylor was placed in a residential care home where she said another resident several years her senior sexually assaulted her multiple times.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t have a secure lock on my door,\u201d Paylor said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s just how rough and raw a residential care home could be for a young female, which is disgusting … the system is broken, and as a result I struggle with lifelong complex PTSD and anxiety.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t have one safe person or one safe place … I couldn\u2019t even tell them I was getting raped.\u201d<\/p>\n While her attachment condition, and the changes to appointed Child Safety officers (CSO), created barriers to help-seeking, the mother of a friend she met in Girl Guides helped her report the sexual abuse to police. <\/p>\n In a move known as \u201cself-placing\u201d \u2014 which is when a child in state care chooses to stay in a place of their own choosing while still in the child protection system \u2014 Paylor eventually moved in with that friend\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve now got two beautiful sons who call her Nanna,\u201d Paylor said, noting that motherhood helped her to debunk engrained beliefs.<\/p>\n \u201cThey drilled it into my head that I wasn\u2019t to have children because I would just continue the cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n Paylor said she endured 45 different placements in Child Safety.<\/p>\n Another Child Safety resident, 15-year-old Emma Griffith* has been moved 10 times in the last year, and has described it as \u201cthe most unsettling thing\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s terrifying. I think about it every day and I\u2019m scared that I could go outside and be told you have to pack your whole life and just move, and I don\u2019t get a choice.\u00a0If we don\u2019t move, their option is to call the police.\u201d<\/p>\n One time her placement closed unexpectedly during a shift at her part-time job, and she was left stranded with her boss before youth police came to collect her.<\/p>\n She asked her team leader for clarity during her most recent move: \u201cI was telling her, \u2018It would really benefit me to understand, so I can accept it.\u2019 She literally said to me: \u2018You don\u2019t need to understand\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey brush things off,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n On Griffith\u2019s long list of things brushed off is \u201can incident where one of my workers had been having really unusual conversations with me that were quite sexual and I was really uncomfortable\u201d.<\/p>\n She said young teens in state care are usually no longer treated with the sensitivity of children, but they are without the ability or resources to become truly independent.<\/p>\n \u201cWe lose our childhood, and then they\u2019re sitting there and they\u2019re wondering why we\u2019re acting like this and presenting these behaviors and these outbursts of anger. But we don\u2019t have anything,\u201d Griffith said.<\/p>\n \u2018Where\u2019s mum? Is she coming to see me?\u2019<\/p>\n A government audit found almost 800 children were self-placing across Queensland last year.<\/p>\n Jack Smith*, 16, is self-placing with the very family he was removed from last year.<\/p>\n His mother, Eleanor Wright* said despite the danger she supposedly posed to him, Child Safety has not conducted a single welfare check or meeting in the month that he has been back living with her.<\/p>\n Child Safety first contacted her last Christmas Eve \u2014 Smith had self-presented to a local hospital during an acute mental health episode.<\/p>\n Wright was given three options: Pick up her son immediately, relinquish her care of him, or risk losing all three of her children.<\/p>\n \u201cI refused to pick (Smith) up until\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0been medically\u00a0assessed under the advice of his psychologist … I said, it\u2019s not safe for (Smith), my other children, or myself, to collect him until he\u2019s been medically cleared,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n Wright said a lack of acute mental health beds in the hospital had contributed to the dilemma, but that a Child Safety Officer (CSO) came to her house to assess her other two children.<\/p>\n Wright said she was \u201cpressured into signing the 28 day agreement\u201d for Smith, so he could access the mental health support he needed. She describes the reality of the next six months as \u201cparental alienation\u201d.<\/p>\n Back in the hospital, Smith said: \u201cI was in a very vulnerable state, and I was asking, \u2018Where\u2019s Mum? Is she coming to see me?\u2019 and (the CSO) said, \u2018Do you want to hear the sugarcoated version or the un-sugarcoated version?\u2019 \u2014 and I was like, \u2018Give it to me raw\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the CSO told him: \u201cYour mum doesn\u2019t want you anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Later on, he said another CSO commented that: \u201cMum\u2018s a horrible mum … that I should never contact her again and just build a new life … I started to think differently of mum.\u201d<\/p>\n Sleeping in tunnels and stealing dry clothes<\/p>\n Wright said she had worked hard to keep her son away from drugs, only to have him returned to her as an addict.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve worked his entire life to keep him out of the drug scene. When he started to have trouble in school, with drugs … we pulled him out and did homeschool to ensure he didn\u2019t end up down that path,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n Smith was introduced to a new combination of money, boredom and access while in Child Safety.<\/p>\n \u201cI got really heavy into crime and really deep into drug addiction,\u201d Smith told 7NEWS.com.au. \u201cI made all the wrong friends … then they signed me up with Centrelink, so I was getting free money, doing nothing, sitting on my backside.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith was moved into a Supported Independent Living home, where carers drop in rather than providing constant supervision \u2014 by the time he was relocated again, he had formed deep friendships and deeper drug addictions.<\/p>\n He was stopped at a petrol station on a road trip back to his former placement area for a medical appointment, when Smith said: \u201cI got out of the car and ran … simply to get back on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Four days later, Smith said: \u201cI realised what I had done.\u201d <\/p>\n He texted his CSO for a ride, but she did not immediately respond. The next day she replied \u201cI have been instructed not to collect you until we find an approved placement.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThese are the consequences of your own actions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018The darkest time I\u2019ve ever had in my life\u2019<\/p>\n Smith was left homeless for 10 days, until he received a Centrelink payment that he used to get home. During that time, he had no money for food or accommodation, and no access to medications prescribed for his disabilities.<\/p>\n \u201cI was sleeping under tunnel near a local shopping centre. It was raining the whole week heavy, and it was freezing cold,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI would go up to BIG W and steal a jumper every single morning and steal a fresh pair of jocks and steal a fresh pair of socks.\u201d<\/p>\n Wright\u2019s newly acquired lawyer advised her that without permission from Child Safety, picking Smith up herself might jeopardise her chance of permanently getting him back.<\/p>\n \u201cI would have been down there in a heartbeat to pick him up.\u00a0I literally had to sit on my hands,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201c(Child Safety) took him from me because I couldn\u2019t provide safe care for him, yet their model of safe care is on the streets homeless?\u201d<\/p>\n His mental health spiralled in state care, resulting in another stint in hospital for \u201cdeep psychosis\u201d during what Smith called \u201cthe darkest time I\u2019ve ever had in my life\u201d.<\/p>\n The CSO did not stay with Smith at the hospital, and he was discharged by the hospital to his mother, who had been sitting by her son\u2019s bedside.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have (Child Safety) take him from me, add\u00a0to his trauma, turn him into a drug\u00a0addict,\u00a0and then hand him back to me to take him home around my other children and detox … they are exposing me and the children to more harm,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n Recovering from damage done<\/p>\n Smith did not return to the same home he left on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n Wright said she and her younger kids fled that home when Child Safety had contacted her ex-husband \u201cto see if he had capacity to take (Smith)\u201d \u2014 despite a no contact order for domestic violence-related mutual undertakings.<\/p>\n \u201cI told (the CSO) that he\u2019s a very dangerous man, and doesn\u2019t know where we are … they disclosed our address to him,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n It was the second time Wright had fled out of fear of her ex, having started a new life \u201cwith nothing\u201d but the kids four years earlier.<\/p>\n Wright claims she was also plunged into financial hardship when Child Safety suddenly cut her disability carer allowance, and that her younger kids became \u201cterrified that they were going to be taken away\u201d.<\/p>\n Smith is now home, sober, employed, and attending weekly psychiatry appointments \u2014 but he and his family are still reeling and recovering from the last six months, and remain before the courts to sever their ties with Child Safety.<\/p>\n Child Safety responds to the claims<\/p>\n Jane Stevens*, who has been employed as a contract worker with Child Safety for 20 years, said: \u201cThe child protection system is always working in chaos.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always\u00a0last minute. On a Friday afternoon you\u2019ll get a call from Child Safety going, we\u2019re removing these children now at, you know, 4.35pm, but we haven\u2019t got anywhere for them to go yet.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, you have emergent situations … but you can\u2019t tell me every removal is at the drop of a hat.<\/p>\n \u201cThe residential system is all about heads on beds.\u201d<\/p>\n Australian Childhood Foundation CEO Janise Mitchell told 7NEWS.com.au that placement breakdowns \u201care the enemy\u201d of healing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to ensure we meet a child or young person\u2019s fundamental right and need to be safe, that the system offers greater safety than the family from which they have been removed, that it is able to understand and meet their needs for relationship stability, through which the healing of their trauma can begin,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Department of Child Safety was contacted with an opportunity to comment on all the comments made within this article, but \u201cThe\u00a0Child Protection Act 1999\u00a0prevents us from commenting on individual cases,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe take allegations of abuse very seriously and when concerns of a criminal nature are raised, we are obligated to report these matters to the police.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder the\u00a0Safer Children, Safer Communities\u00a0initiative, we have introduced new services to recruit more foster carers and a professional foster care pilot to help transition children with disabilities and complex needs out of residential care and to move children under the age of five out of residential care into family-based arrangements.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Queensland Government is currently considering its response to recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry into Child Safety.\u201d<\/p>\n * The names of several people within this article have been changed to protect their anonymity.<\/p>\n If you need help in a crisis, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For further information about depression contact beyondblue on 1300224636 or talk to your GP, local health professional or someone you trust.<\/p>\n If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, domestic or family violence, call 1800 737 732 or visit\u00a01800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call triple-0.\u00a0<\/p>\n For advice and counselling for men concerned about their use of family violence call 1300 766 491.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Microsoft Teams crashes as thousands unable to join meetings<\/p>\n 1 min read<\/p>\n![\"Deanna](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/7ca37aa7ce683041d4c8f86c3152a36773707b43.jpg\")
Deanna Paylor said that she was exposed to both mental and physical harm growing up in the care of Child Safety. Credit: Supplied<\/p>\n![\"Deanna](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9fe558efd2c6209c35b9ce88f9031ed2a8e466f9.jpg\")
Deanna Paylor now has two young children, after being raised to believe she should not have a family of her own. Credit: Supplied<\/p>\n![\"Jack](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ea0f6143f7f85e356c644af0b2256c128c6482a0.jpg\")
Jack Smith* received a text from a Child Safety officer saying he had been left on the streets for days because of his own actions. Credit: Supplied<\/p>\n