So is the mother partially to blame? Well today director of the Human Development Ava Pennill told seven news that is for the court to decide but she says her department did all they could. In short Pennill says government cannot micro-manage families.
Ava Pennil, Dir. Human Development Dept.
"I don't think it's a failure on the part of the Human Development Department, we come in and we support children when parents fail to do so. In this case, we had a previous case with this family and we did our intervention and our files clearly state that we did all that was necessary at that time, without going into details, and we did everything to support those children at that time."
Keith Swift,
Looking at it in hindsight, do you think your department could have done anything differently; maybe your department could have done more?
Ava Pennill,
"In the case when we got it reported we supported the family and at the time when the case was closed the mother was not living here, she was living in another area, she was well-supported, her children were being cared for, so at that time there was no need for the department to be continually involved in her family 'cause she had balanced her life and she was alight. Now a year and a half later things changed, she moved to another area, and circumstances change. We are not there to follow behind people, that's not it, families need to protect themselves and we are there to support families."
