Despite the risk to her career, Joan has chosen to speak with the ABC about what she witnessed in Sally’s case. She wanted to be identified but the Family Law Act prevents her from being named.
Sally was put in the custody of her father on the basis of a report written by a child psychologist who assessed the family on three occasions. On each occasion the psychologist interviewed the mother and the father and observed them with Sally.
Sally’s mother levelled allegations of domestic abuse against the father, and later raised questions about whether Sally was being physically abused in the father’s household.
The father and other experts alleged the mother was dishonest in her claims.
That was one of the reasons the psychologist deemed Wendy an emotional risk to her child describing their relationship as “enmeshed”. The psychologist also questioned the mother’s “emotional stability”.
Other experts, including child protection staff who had contact with the family, disagreed.
In a report, child protection said it was “unclear why the contact [with the mother] is supervised as the interaction was appropriate, and [Sally] showed no signs of being unhappy or uncomfortable being with her mother”.
Joan supervised about 40 visits with Sally and her mum between May and October of 2021.
She has several decades of experience as a social worker and has worked as a senior manager in the field.
Within a few weeks of having contact with the mother, father and the child, Joan alleges she observed worrying comments and behaviours from Sally that could potentially indicate abuse and she raised her concerns with her manager.
Joan’s manager, Nancy*, who cannot be named for legal reasons, raised Joan’s concerns with the Independent Children’s Lawyer (ICL) in the case.
An Independent Children’s Lawyer is appointed by the court to advocate for the child’s best interest in a parenting dispute.
Joan was shocked when her manager informed her that the child’s lawyer wasn’t interested in her abuse concerns and didn’t want them filed in a report because, according to the manager, “[the ICL] did not want to give the mother any material which would allow her to go back into court.”
Documents seen by the ABC revealed the owner, Nancy, was worried about her business. After hearing the centre’s concerns about the possibility Sally was being abused, the Independent Children’s Lawyer stopped sending new cases to the centre.
[P]rivate contact centres, like the one supervising Sally’s case, have no mandatory requirements and no regulatory body.
There is no agency tracking how many private centres exist, but an Australian Institute of Family Studies report released in December last year estimated there were more than 60.
Contact centres were primarily established so parents who were judged to be at risk of harming a child could have contact with their children in a safe, supervised setting.
Elspeth McInnes is a professor of sociology at the University of South Australia and has studied family separation and family law over several decades.
The professor says she is now hearing about more cases where parents who believed their child’s complaints of abuse, had lost custody and were only allowed to have supervised contact.