From that article...
That line just floors me. The lawyer (GAL) who was appointed to serve on Stella's behalf just allowed HM to make plans for Stella? At one time he suggested getting Stella out of there ASAP. What happened? Did he just give up? How on earth is this arrangement in Stella's best interest?
MOO
My bold...
Its not in Stella's best interest - its in Heather Mack's Best interest.
and I find that although this is taking place in Bali, and due to the overseeing charity and the carers being Australian based, I would hope that the outline of the proposed care takes and the charity would, in some way, take into consideration recommendations from the ongoing (and recent) Child Abuse Australian Royal Commission inquiry which has an aspect relating to Children In Residential Care.
Bottom line -
Out of family placement is the last option.
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Research finds that children in residential care feel unsafe
19 December, 2016
http://www.childabuseroyalcommissio...rch-finds-that-children-in-residential-care-f
Some extracts related to residential care:
In Australia, residential care is considered to be a placement of last resort for children and young people requiring out-of-home care and is used in circumstances where other types of out-of-home care are unsuccessful or unavailable.
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Children and young people also reported that younger and more vulnerable children should ideally be kept out of residential care altogether, or alternatively placed in units with others of a similar age and background.
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Other key findings of the report include:
Children felt safest in residential care when it felt like home, for example when they were in a clean and welcoming environment, where they were able to celebrate events, and were well supervised by adults;
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To be safe, participants needed their residential care to offer stability and predictability.
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Many of the young people interviewed described their time in residential care as chaotic, found it difficult to feel settled and spoke of the high turnover of staff;
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Children were provided with a sense of safety when their residential care provided routine, fair rules and the ability to be heard during decision-making;
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Residential care felt most safe when adults and institutions took children and young peoples safety seriously and had proactive strategies in place to protect children from harm.
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Young people also reported that in order to feel safe in residential care, they needed workers to realise that it was their home and that it was the workers who were visiting their space, not vice-versa.
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End quote.
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From what I see, the past 2 years of Stella's life has not been in the child's best interest.
For the past 2 years Stella has been in an environment that is not 'home'.
It has not & does not offer any of the basic recommendation that are classified as an Safe Environment such as Clean, Welcoming, Risk Free, Supervised, Stable, Predictable, & Protective, where the child has a say (or is advocated on behalf of) as to what the best and ideal situation can be for its particular needs.
The environment is crowded, chaotic, constrictive, and risk ridden.
A jail is not a home to the innocent.
I find it so offensive that residential care and placement of Stella is the optional path being considered when Stella has family (a grandmother, so far) wanting to take and care for her out of this jail environment.
If it is not KW that makes the grade to offer Stella the best environment possible - then someone else step-up.
Like it or not, this is one 'Family' crisis where adults of maturity, means, and good intent (not murderers) need to be making the decisions for a child in very bad circumstances.
And they are very bad circumstances this child is in.
If Stella is not taken back to the USA to blood family and a safe and secure environment.... In 8 years time, the 'family' may be dealing with a damaged child with an inheritance in the hands of a mother of no means and a criminal record still yet to face charges in the USA, who has been brought up in a country totally foreign to her citizenship status, where she will have to adjust once more to another family placement and readjustment to another set of circumstances - knowing that her father is still in jail in Indonesia and her life is broken and could have been fixed when she was 2 years old. If people think none of this will effect Stella - wait until she's 15 years old and realises what resentment is, and what she thinks 'family' means.
The Charity should knows better than to leave Stella in care of those other than her blood family. They know the risk of vulnerability the child may encounter for another 8 years.
The Residential carers should know better than to leave Stella in their care. They are not family and they cannot replace family.
The Governments and officials do know better than to leave Stella in care and vulnerable for another 8 years in a country where she is not a citizen, nor where she has not access to immediate family relatives. There are no blood relatives on hand if anything happens to Stella - the closest person is half a world away.
The Lawyers for HM should know better than to leave Stella in residential care and vulnerable for another 8 years but they are not fighting (and have done more to encourage family separation) for her placement with blood relatives, as far as I can see.
So instead of Stella being taken from that environment (which she should never have been placed in), to be placed in residential care with people who
are not her 'family' - when there are family members willing to take Stella away from this environment - is just ludicrous.
10 days to go.
