Calder and Mirren

In kindy, Calder started having ‘big behaviours’, his mum Mirren told the Royal Commission. ‘I wasn’t really sure what was happening to him at the time.’

The education department sent someone to assess him.

‘The person came in for about an hour, spent about an hour there, observed him and went away and that was the end of it.’

Calder started primary school but ‘his behaviours continued to regress’.

He would defecate in the playground and abscond any chance he would get.

The teacher started separating him from the class and isolating him.

Mirren demanded to know what was going on.

The education department referred him for specialist assessments.

‘Any time you go for an assessment, it’s sort of treated as though it’s the family’s fault. It’s like, “Oh another Aboriginal family that is dysfunctional and therefore there must be faults within that family.”’

Calder was diagnosed as autistic. Sometime later, he was also diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and hypoxic brain injury.

The education department transferred him to a school for autistic students, which was some distance from home and Mirren’s work.

He had to catch the school bus and he would be on the bus for hours each day. Calder couldn’t cope being on the bus for so long.

‘He was weeing himself on the bus. They weren’t allowed to eat on the bus. It ended up that his behaviours escalated to the point where he was attacking the chaperones on the bus.’

No-one told Mirren what was going on until the bus driver banned Calder.

She contacted the education department, asking for an explanation.

‘This particular incident resulted in about 13 people attending a meeting, it was so ridiculous.’

The school showed Mirren several letters from other parents ‘wanting him off the bus’.

The letters weren’t dated and Mirren had never seen them before.

‘You feel ambushed,’ she said.

Mirren discovered staff at the bus company weren’t trained to deal with children with disability.

She also discovered the reason Calder ‘had gone off’ at the chaperone was because they were making racist jokes.

Mirren believes Calder’s experiences at school also contributed to his behaviours.

His classroom was completely segregated from the rest of the school.

‘The kids were not allowed to join in the school production play because they were considered too high risk to be able to understand the thing. They were not allowed to go on excursions. The only class materials they had was stuff that was printed off online, and there was no opportunity for anything else.’

A padded room was attached to the classroom.

‘When the kids would start harming themselves or ramming their heads or biting and banging, they will place the child in that room.’

Calder spent a considerable amount of time in the padded room.

‘He would come home with clear finger marks dug into his shoulders and back and other unexplained bruises.’

Calder told his mum that staff would grab him and restrain him. Mirren made a complaint but ‘got absolutely nowhere’.

Over the years Mirren has tried to find services to help Calder, now late-teens.

‘The way that you’re made to feel through the process of trying to get services is disgusting. And once you do get into the service, if it’s not suitable, your kids end up getting restrained or they end up getting kicked out of the program.’

Mirren said the services aren’t culturally safe.

‘There’s none of our mob that are staff … There’s no consultation or engagement within the programs … There’s no consultation with local community about what they’re trying to achieve.’