I still often wish I'd have rung Flea after I talked to her mum at the show. I had found out (whilst talking to her mother at the show) that the issues had arisen again and that things were on the downside again, but how was I to know that she would commit suicide two nights later?
In retrospect, I can see the signs in the lead up; but it's too little too late. Especially considering the fact that during her month-long voluntary placement into care she'd told me and my then foster mother the basics of what had happened to her and her fear that if she were to return to where she has been residing that the abuse would start up again. She'd already been self-harming and had scars to show for it, but being only seventeen at the time, what could I really do but try telling people that she wasn't lying? Unfortunately, as a result of not being believed, she took her life, just after her sixteenth birthday.
I'll remember that night for the rest of my life. Hearing the phone ring, watching my then foster mother start to panic as she asked questions about whether we'd heard from Felicia during that day or not and then driving to two different houses to find her (Flea's) mother. I'd known something as gone completely awry by the way my foster mother was acting, and the fact that she asked me to stay in the car once we'd pulled up outside her mother's house and that she would explain why later.
After seeing my then foster mother consoling Flea's mother, and after my foster mother returned to the car with Flea's then six year old sister, I knew what had happened. The five minute drive home seemed to take forever, especially seeing as though I didn't want to have confirmation of what I'd figured out until I got safely out of the car that I was driving.
For about a week after Flea's little sister stayed with us. During that time she asked time after time where her sister was and whether she was going to wake up and come back home. The poor girl couldn't sleep unless someone sat beside her and either read her a story or sang a song.
All I can hope for I guess is that somehow Flea's little sister's scars won't affect her when she grows up, that the Department of Child Safety, in all their 'save their own arses' glory will become a little more transparent and that if their constant negligence in regards to kids in and out of care doesn't cease, that it AT THE VERY LEAST will deteriorate to a point where no more children or young people will die as a result of not seeing any other way out of the awful situations they are in which they have no control over. Child abuse IS everybody's business, as the department of child safety (QLD) have been saying since at least 1999. It's really quite disappointing that, in their positions, they haven't lived up to their own 'motto.'
An extract of a message sent from me to one of my friends, who is also related to the situation...
OMFG...
"denied one of the girls foster care, forcing her to return to a situation where she allegedly was being abused."
I was there when Barbara was trying to help her into foster care, and I was there trying to help with felicia's case by various means. The thing was neither the dept nor a few other unnamed people wanted to do anything about it. To them, Flea was like a number, and that's freaking atrocious if you ask me. The days leading back to when Felicia had to return home were full of conversations between her and i and barbara and multiple combinations of these. There was no way she wanted to go back, but I couldn't do anything much because no one will listen to a (then) seventeen year old foster kid who happened to be friends (to an almost sisterly extent) with Felicia.
It still angers me that the dept was able to curtain it all for that long.
How many others have been through the same thing is what I'm wondering, and would it be possible to start a class action? Considering how many people were effected by these actions of the dept and other negligent actions or inactions over the past twenty years.
I'd have a few particular points to bring up myself against the dept: at the very least there would be three, just from me. Another at least three from my twin and I'm sure there are others as well.
The system needs to be more transparent so tragedies such as these will never occur again.
...and I want to know why no one believed her. I knew by the way she was talking about it and such that she wasn't lying, why didn't they listen?
"The teenager had begged Queensland child safety officers to leave her in foster care, where she had been for a month, but she had been sent back.
Nobody -- not police, not child safety officers, not even her own mother -- believed Felicia's allegations. They suspected they were the manipulative lies of a teenager angling to escape the drudgery of her small-town life."
That month she spent in foster care was in the same house as me and we shared a bedroom so that we could talk and such. In that time I got to know her pretty well (as well as afterwards) and there were so many times that Barbara asked her if she was lying. I still can't believe they didn't listen to what she or zoe were saying until it was too late; and still they did nothing except cover it up.
Have I been asked anything about the situation after all of it? No. Have they asked me whether I talked to her mother the day before she committed suicide about the preggers scare and about the sexual abuse allegations? No. Have they asked me anything at all? No. The worst part? Even if I did take what I know to the press, to add to the whole thing, people like DOCs and a certain old foster mother would try cover it up again. Urgh.
It makes me so angry that it's taken this long for even what has come up to come up, let alone anything else.
Below are a few links to articles relating to this particular situation. Please note that there have been/are/will be many other situations of the Department of Child Safety not doing the right thing by the children and young people that they claim to endeavour to protect.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/anna-bligh-closes-scrutiny-of-suicides/story-e6frgczx-1226122414099
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/teenage-girls-killed-themselves-under-child-safety-watch/story-e6frg6nf-1226118441590
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/premier-anna-bligh-intervenes-over-teen-suicides/story-fn59niix-1226123172342
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/girls-deaths-hidden-behind-privacy-screen/story-fn59niix-1226122696409
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/tear-back-curtain-of-shame/story-e6frg71x-1226121535293
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/teenage-girls-killed-themselves-under-child-safety-watch/story-e6frg6nf-1226118441590
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/official-failure-leads-to-lives-lost/story-e6frg6zo-1226117922251
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/police-delay-rules-out-child-abuse-charges/story-e6frg6nf-1226119230444
Please also note these articles are not in chronological order and that more articles in relation to this situation will appear in time to come.
In retrospect, I can see the signs in the lead up; but it's too little too late. Especially considering the fact that during her month-long voluntary placement into care she'd told me and my then foster mother the basics of what had happened to her and her fear that if she were to return to where she has been residing that the abuse would start up again. She'd already been self-harming and had scars to show for it, but being only seventeen at the time, what could I really do but try telling people that she wasn't lying? Unfortunately, as a result of not being believed, she took her life, just after her sixteenth birthday.
I'll remember that night for the rest of my life. Hearing the phone ring, watching my then foster mother start to panic as she asked questions about whether we'd heard from Felicia during that day or not and then driving to two different houses to find her (Flea's) mother. I'd known something as gone completely awry by the way my foster mother was acting, and the fact that she asked me to stay in the car once we'd pulled up outside her mother's house and that she would explain why later.
After seeing my then foster mother consoling Flea's mother, and after my foster mother returned to the car with Flea's then six year old sister, I knew what had happened. The five minute drive home seemed to take forever, especially seeing as though I didn't want to have confirmation of what I'd figured out until I got safely out of the car that I was driving.
For about a week after Flea's little sister stayed with us. During that time she asked time after time where her sister was and whether she was going to wake up and come back home. The poor girl couldn't sleep unless someone sat beside her and either read her a story or sang a song.
All I can hope for I guess is that somehow Flea's little sister's scars won't affect her when she grows up, that the Department of Child Safety, in all their 'save their own arses' glory will become a little more transparent and that if their constant negligence in regards to kids in and out of care doesn't cease, that it AT THE VERY LEAST will deteriorate to a point where no more children or young people will die as a result of not seeing any other way out of the awful situations they are in which they have no control over. Child abuse IS everybody's business, as the department of child safety (QLD) have been saying since at least 1999. It's really quite disappointing that, in their positions, they haven't lived up to their own 'motto.'
An extract of a message sent from me to one of my friends, who is also related to the situation...
OMFG...
"denied one of the girls foster care, forcing her to return to a situation where she allegedly was being abused."
I was there when Barbara was trying to help her into foster care, and I was there trying to help with felicia's case by various means. The thing was neither the dept nor a few other unnamed people wanted to do anything about it. To them, Flea was like a number, and that's freaking atrocious if you ask me. The days leading back to when Felicia had to return home were full of conversations between her and i and barbara and multiple combinations of these. There was no way she wanted to go back, but I couldn't do anything much because no one will listen to a (then) seventeen year old foster kid who happened to be friends (to an almost sisterly extent) with Felicia.
It still angers me that the dept was able to curtain it all for that long.
How many others have been through the same thing is what I'm wondering, and would it be possible to start a class action? Considering how many people were effected by these actions of the dept and other negligent actions or inactions over the past twenty years.
I'd have a few particular points to bring up myself against the dept: at the very least there would be three, just from me. Another at least three from my twin and I'm sure there are others as well.
The system needs to be more transparent so tragedies such as these will never occur again.
...and I want to know why no one believed her. I knew by the way she was talking about it and such that she wasn't lying, why didn't they listen?
"The teenager had begged Queensland child safety officers to leave her in foster care, where she had been for a month, but she had been sent back.
Nobody -- not police, not child safety officers, not even her own mother -- believed Felicia's allegations. They suspected they were the manipulative lies of a teenager angling to escape the drudgery of her small-town life."
That month she spent in foster care was in the same house as me and we shared a bedroom so that we could talk and such. In that time I got to know her pretty well (as well as afterwards) and there were so many times that Barbara asked her if she was lying. I still can't believe they didn't listen to what she or zoe were saying until it was too late; and still they did nothing except cover it up.
Have I been asked anything about the situation after all of it? No. Have they asked me whether I talked to her mother the day before she committed suicide about the preggers scare and about the sexual abuse allegations? No. Have they asked me anything at all? No. The worst part? Even if I did take what I know to the press, to add to the whole thing, people like DOCs and a certain old foster mother would try cover it up again. Urgh.
It makes me so angry that it's taken this long for even what has come up to come up, let alone anything else.
Below are a few links to articles relating to this particular situation. Please note that there have been/are/will be many other situations of the Department of Child Safety not doing the right thing by the children and young people that they claim to endeavour to protect.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/anna-bligh-closes-scrutiny-of-suicides/story-e6frgczx-1226122414099
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/teenage-girls-killed-themselves-under-child-safety-watch/story-e6frg6nf-1226118441590
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/premier-anna-bligh-intervenes-over-teen-suicides/story-fn59niix-1226123172342
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/girls-deaths-hidden-behind-privacy-screen/story-fn59niix-1226122696409
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/tear-back-curtain-of-shame/story-e6frg71x-1226121535293
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/teenage-girls-killed-themselves-under-child-safety-watch/story-e6frg6nf-1226118441590
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/official-failure-leads-to-lives-lost/story-e6frg6zo-1226117922251
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/police-delay-rules-out-child-abuse-charges/story-e6frg6nf-1226119230444
Please also note these articles are not in chronological order and that more articles in relation to this situation will appear in time to come.
