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| Penny Gillespie, Mission Australia’s State Director Queensland |
In a country acknowledged for its economic management after emerging relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis, it is a shocking indictment that there are still so many children living in poverty, writes Penny Gillespie, Mission Australia’s State Director Queensland, in today’s Courier Mail.
With all the prosperity in our nation, surely this should not be the case, but the reality is thousands of Australian - and Queensland - children are homeless or going without basic essentials. Thousands more are at risk of such circumstances.
More than 84,000 Australian children under 18 in the company of a parent or guardian sought help from a specialist homelessness service in 2009-10.
Even more startling, 82 per cent of couples with children and 67 per cent of sole-parent families were turned away from services because of the system's lack of capacity.
Any parent with schoolchildren need only think of their child's year group and it's likely there will be at least one student experiencing homelessness or at risk of doing so.
As a parent, I am horrified by this statistic. I doubt you will find a Queenslander who doesn't agree with the sentiment that no child should go without. Yet somehow, so many do.
As we celebrate National Children's Week this week, now is the time to respond to kids living in poverty and give them the best chance at a happy and healthy childhood.
Mission Australia works with some of the most vulnerable kids in our communities, helping them when they are in crisis or when their families are struggling.
Go to Courier Mail website for the full article.
Further reading:
Homeless children left in the cold by patchwork reform
Read this article on the Courier mail website
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