A District Court judge in a rural town raised serious concerns about the Child and Family Agency’s (CFA) lack of a policy on mobile phone use by children in care.
The judge said he had first raised the issue with the CFA lawyer six months earlier and had mentioned it again at a subsequent sitting. He asked whether the CFA applied any restrictions on mobile phones and whether it assessed when a phone was appropriate for a child.
The judge said the CFA should be leading the way in child protection for younger children and implement a policy, not merely as part of or in response to an audit. He acknowledged that exceptions would be needed but described some mobile phone use as dangerous and said it should be at the top of the CFA’s agenda.
He noted that too many children missed school because of mobile phone use. He said the CFA had no policy on the issue and added: “If I don’t do something I would be failing in my duty and something needs to be done.” He remarked: “We talk about stranger danger, yet we allow anyone to talk to a child in their bedroom.” He referred to a recent criminal case in which an accused had described snapchat as “heaven for a paedophile”.
The judge also said parents needed to examine their own addiction to phones.
The CFA lawyer told the court that the world for this generation differed greatly from previous ones. She assured the judge that the matter had been raised at senior management level within the CFA.