Noted in an article by Madeleine Cox (5 November 2021) A Queensland mum has expressed her horror after a carer strangled her severely disabled boy.
A Queensland disability support worker has been found guilty of strangling a 17-year-old boy who has the intellectual capacity of a toddler.
Dianne Joy Kelly was found guilty of strangling the boy for 20 to 30 seconds with his bandana, leaving his neck covered in red marks and the room covered in blood, The Courier-Mail reported.
It is horrifying to find someone has hurt your child – it breaks your heart you wonder why this happened to your vulnerable child who could not defend himself and how the worker could be so cruel - this guilty worker was sentenced to two years and 4 months in jail and expected to be eligible for parole in 14 months – at least she was sentenced as so many workers are getting away with abuse and serious harm done to those with disabilities.
The mother said her son now has PTSD and is afraid of carers. What choices will that mother have for her son’s future with this kind of scenario? commonly happening to those of our children who do not have the ability to speak up or say what happened to them?
The mother also read a victim impact statement in court which left many in tears, and she stated how her son has had epileptic seizures from a young age and still even now 20 seizures a night. This mother would then be sleep deprived too but what choice does she have for support if workers are going to attack our children? Not much.
The mother also stated that that the attack was a disgraceful act of violence and betrayal of trust. Which is certainly was. Always the betrayal when we thought our child would be looked after - the mother also said ““I’m still angry that after all of that she (the support worker who strangled the disability boy ) didn’t admit what she did. She showed no remorse and hasn’t taken responsibility for her actions,” she added.
I have noticed that providers do not seem to train workers especially younger workers to be responsible or accountable for their actions it is as if they are working with a product and it's up to the management. Our children are living, feeling, human beings and they need to be treated with respect and accountability should be a given by all support support workers. Yet when I have questioned workers why the bowling ball fell on his foot, or why my son was pushed over they seem surprised that I expect answers. People dodge accountability including the managers so that no one person can be responsible or be sued for anything that happens just like corporates do. This is corporate crime of the worse kind – violence to our innocent vulnerable children!
There should be health and safety checks by actual humans not just phone calls on all the residential care places every week or what about security guards? Our children are precious why should they be allowed to be harmed and ignored or neglected or even strangled like this 17 year old boy, who only had the capacity of a toddler and did not know why his care worker was attacking him?
What are the choices parents of disabilities children have? If they look after their child and behavior is hard, demanding and exhausting then the parents need more support – especially if they are a lone parent (considering 50 percent of marriages break in society there will be plenty of parents on their own).
If the parent is not given any help navigating the NDIS or feels isolated with their child and there is no help from judgmental neighbours who do not understand the situation - then understandably the parent may withdraw to protect themselves from criticism, and their vulnerable child too and so isolation increases making stress too much for parents.
Where is the love and compassion in our society?
We need to reach out to each other especially as parents of vulnerable and nonverbal children in disabilities – if a parent is not coping what is their choice? There are only two – to put him or her in care where they may be abused, or neglected or even die from neglect or preventable death or keep their son or daughter home looking after their child and yet not be able to cope with the stress on their own – with no supports, no help and no one to understand they have little to help them. Often because parents are are caring for their disability child they cannot work depending on the needs of their child and so lacking income to be able to have a better life for themselves makes it a worse pressure.
In the end only kindness matters as jewel the singer said. We need to help each other and with our hands must reach out and be useful not useless in hard times...
The NDIS is a cold machine and expects forms to be filled and evidence to be made by parents of a child’s needs in disabilities yet does not check up with human input on how a person is doing whether the parent of the child - NDIS have become a robo type organization which misses the needs and shows no compassion in fact fighting with parents over the funding they said they would give and then have taken off many families.
Many do not want to put their disability children in respite, in residential care or even day programs because of the incidents of abuse and neglect that are occurring and the fact the NDIS commission does not punish the providers or made a standard for workers who are often so young they do not know what they are doing. Young or new support workers just follow the instructions of the managers with little comprehension of the needs and complex psychology of disabilities children and persons. The workers themselves are not supported often and have too many persons to look after at once – they need an experienced supervisor checking what they are doing but that does not happen. In effect the managers of some organizations use our children to train their workers on or with since their main focus is to make money our of our children.
This Commodifying of care so much means the wrong kinds of workers are doing care that is not thorough enough.
You are left with little choices about what to do with your disability child and that can send a parent down into despair. We need to support each other as parents and to stand up for what’s right and the rights of our vulnerable disability children.
If we do not fight for our child who will? Even better is to do it together and join with other parents as a strong force.
The worker in Queensland was charged with manslaughter by the police and found guilty of strangling a disabled boy in her ‘care’ leaving marks on his throat and blood in the room. This is a real crime scene. His mother distraught and broken by this – no wonder we are scared to leave our children with anyone and are constantly having to be vigilant like a soldier and on edge in case on attack on our child who cannot speak or defend himself or herself…and yet we need at the same time some time out to be able to rest in order to do all that we need to do for our vulnerable children..
Parents try to get support and put their vulnerable children in care like Merna Aprem’s mother did only to find a few weeks later she died through being left alone in a bath unsupervised and yet where are the charges for the workers involved or the organization Afford? Why is it seen as ok for a disability person to die, with barely a ripple? The providers paid by the NDIS are meant to provide good care, and an organization makes its promise to care for our disability children and adult children. As soon as they get their money they are failing to properly care for that vulnerable person seeing them as just another number to make money for their greedy corporate coffers.
At least the support worker in Queensland was punished, and had swift justice and the poor boy she strangled is still alive, but for the rest of those vulnerable children and young people or persons who have been harmed or died in disabilities there has been none the crime never able to be proven and always cited as lack of evidence by police and Judges alike. We need to change this in NSW and in Australia these children need protection of CCTV cameras and decently trained and supervised workers.
I was distressed recently hearing a 52 year old mother had starved her autistic son here in Yagoona Sydney and is on bail facing charges (article by By Sunayna Kanjilal October 7, 2022 and 7News Australia, and ABC NEWs)
. An article said the mother had let him starve to death only feeding him fizzy drink and white bread and she was on her own. I don’t know why it happened she is yet to be sentenced. We must not let a disability person be allowed to be harmed. Disability children and adults have the right to live and to not suffer neglect like all other human beings. That right must be honored even in the courts
The neighbors said the mother was on her own after those who lived with her had died – did she get any support from those same neighbours or anyone? This mother needed some practical support and compassion…. and so did her son. Why did she slip through any kind of care or help? The NDIS removes itself from the human factor by not even getting involved. NOt everyone can fill out forms and get reports done if they are too exhausted looking after their disability child and they are struggling. Tragedy strikes and people are surprised – why are they surprised when they turned their backs on those they saw were in need or pretended that they were ok not wanting to know. This is a time get down on our knees to pray when there is great need around us and step up where we can.
This should not be happening in Australia, we are not a third world country yet our materialism stops us caring and helping each other. Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes and yes again and I am my son’s and daughter’s keeper…lets help each other to protect defend and fight for our children’s right to proper care, and freedom from harm and their basic human rights. If we don’t fight who will ? people don’t always know what is going on in the disability system they assume our children are being looked after because all the crimes are being covered up by the corporates – their corporate crimes the worst being letting our children be harmed by substandard workers who are not being trained or supported enough themselves - this needs to change.
sign my petition for better protection in disabilities and justice for our vulnerable children in any kind of care or classroom: change.org/disabilitycameras
all the best
Anndrea X