Former support worker says police, child protection authorities misunderstood service's role in boy's death

A former manager of an Aboriginal support service has described feeling unfairly criticized by police and child protection authorities over the death of a 13-year-old boy. Angela Backman, who managed Port Lincoln's Aboriginal Family Support Services (AFSS), told an inquest that authorities did not understand her service's therapeutic approach.

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I went to a meeting and I just felt like DCP and SAPOL were saying that we weren't doing our job because the children were constantly going missing.

Budda Spencer, as his family wishes him to be known, died in May 2021 when the industrial skip bin he was sleeping in was tipped into a rubbish truck. Two other children, aged 11 and 12, who were under the Department for Child Protection's care, were also sleeping in the bin but were unharmed. Budda Spencer was not under the department's care.

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That is not how we work, our role working with children is to build relationships and work in a therapeutic manner.

Ms Backman told the court that AFSS aimed to support parents and keep families together. She explained that the service's role was to build relationships and work therapeutically with children, not to manage them. She recalled an instance where police suggested putting barbed wire around a residential service, which she found unproductive.

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At one point SAPOL said we should put barbed wire around a residential service, so I thought that was quite … not productive.

She also stated that AFSS offered support to Budda Spencer's mother, but she did not attend due to illness. Ms Backman said her service provided regular support to Budda Spencer's two friends, who were under DCP care, and became familiar with the 13-year-old through them. When families did not engage with programs, she would refer the

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I think [the police] were frustrated.