Brisbane care provider says Queensland's care system is broken

A Brisbane residential care provider says Queensland's child care system is broken and needs reform. She has also raised concerns about how recent changes have been rolled out.

Nicole Hague runs Progressive Youth Care and Consultancy, a residential care provider in Brisbane. She spoke to THE Brisbane Channel about what the state is trying to fix and what she has seen when children are moved at short notice. She also spoke about what she believes would make those moves safer. She says people who have questioned the decisions have not been treated well.

At the end of June 2026, 13,736 children were in state care in Queensland. About one in five of them, or 2,804 children, were in residential care.

Ms Hague says she knows reform is needed. She argues that children get one chance at a childhood, and that taking it away leaves them with nothing.

From foster carer to residential provider

Ms Hague is originally from New South Wales. She was a single mother of three and spent 28 years as a foster carer. She says she wanted her own children to see that other kids face much harder lives, and to learn to help their community.

She says fostering was difficult. Carers with young children of their own can be asked to take in complex teenagers, and she compares that with parents who grow alongside their children through each stage. She also says respite care was promised to carers but never delivered.

She says these experiences showed her where the system was falling short. Some children, she says, need a safe place where they are not repeatedly pushed away, judged or labelled too hard. She believes this takes a team rather than one person. That is why she developed youth work support, support for foster carers, and respite.

Ms Hague says residential care should not feel clinical or institutionalised. She recalls homes where televisions were locked in cabinets. Her aim is a normal home environment, with staff who listen to the child rather than only responding to behaviour. She says the goal is to reunify children with their parents or kin, or to support them into a foster placement.

She is also critical of rosters in which a different person arrives on shift each day. She says young children should not go to sleep with one carer and wake up to a stranger.

Ms Hague says foster carers often cannot manage some children's behaviours because of the effect on their own homes and other children. She says that is why residential care has an important role.