For the first time in 20 years, no child in NSW will be forced to sleep in unaccredited emergency accommodation. The practice involved placing children in out-of-home care in hotels, motels and caravan parks staffed by rostered shift workers. Now the government's ban has taken effect across the state.
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00:00Five years ago, Alice and her younger brother were taken out of their classrooms by police
00:07officers.
00:08We were sat in there for three hours with nothing, no communication, nothing going on.
00:13And then we were scooted off to the hotel.
00:16She says her experience in unaccredited emergency accommodation felt like jail.
00:21When someone goes on a holiday, you pack for an end date, right?
00:25You know when you're going to come home.
00:27I didn't have a home.
00:28My home was just permanently erased.
00:30In 2023, 139 children were living in unaccredited emergency accommodation.
00:36A special inquiry last year found they were not suitable or appropriate environments for
00:41children, with some kept in the temporary measure for over 600 days.
00:46Certainly the young person who talked about feeling like a dog in a pound and moving cage
00:50to cage, that language being their language was incredibly powerful.
00:53The government says the ban was possible with the boost of foster carers and expanding supported
00:58accommodation.
00:59There's still accredited emergency accommodation in the system.
01:03That cohort of children is something that we are still working hard to reduce the numbers
01:08of.
01:09Hayley and Floris have been foster parents more than 20 times in six years.
01:14Seeing the changes in the children's lives has been phenomenal.
01:20And for us, you know, one of the biggest regrets is that we didn't know about this earlier.
01:25You just treat these children the same as your children and show them the love and the
01:30attention that they've missed out on and given them a safe, loving, nurturing family to be
01:36part of.
01:37A small step forward in fixing a broken system.