Parramatta Council could become the first Council in Australia to install Safe Haven Baby Boxes – a last resort option for parents who want to safely surrender their baby.
At the latest Council meeting, a majority of Parramatta Councillors supported the potential installation of Safe Haven Baby Boxes across the city.
It comes after a newborn baby was left abandoned in the backyard of a Blacktown home in April, her umbilical cord still attached.
Councillor Ange Humphries said it’s necessary for Council to consider what it can do to prevent a baby being abandoned without care in Parramatta.
“Other countries have these baby boxes where you’re able to surrender a child up to 12 months of age that you are no longer either able to care for, you believe you can’t care for, there’s some reason stopping you to care or some reason stopping you from surrendering that baby to the authorities,” she said
“Having had a child myself with the support of a family and friends and great doctors and great people around me and obviously lots of support services, I struggled and I was 30 years of age and it was a much-planned and much-wanted baby.
“I can’t imagine the circumstances for a young person or an older person, or a disabled person or perhaps somebody who does have a substance abuse problem.”
Humphries said the boxes, which would be the first of its kind in Australia, would sit outside a council building in a discreet yet accessible location. When the door is opened an alarm would be triggered alerting emergency authorities that a baby has been surrendered.
Information would also be provided in the box for the birth parents to access on healthcare, mental heath and substance abuse services, as well as what’s going to happen to their baby.
Humphries said she has seen the Safe Haven Baby Boxes be successfully used while working overseas.
“I was working in the United States for eight months and one of these safe haven baby boxes was installed and there were 16 babies that were successfully surrendered… just in the time that I worked there,” she said.
“But it didn’t spark my attention until it happened in our neighbouring LGA, in just the last two months a baby was surrendered in a backyard, in the elements and completely abandoned.”
If the boxes are installed in Parramatta, Humphries said Council would be helping its most vulnerable people at their most difficult time.
“We can come together and we can avert a crisis before it actually happens, this is before we find a child in the dumpster, at the bottom of a river, left in a park to die,” she said.
“We could actually save people’s lives here.”
Council will now prepare a report to look at potential locations within each ward where one of the boxes could be installed, as well funding and operation of the program.
Ellie Busby is a news reporter for Western Sydney Publishing Group. A graduate of the University of Hertfordshire and Western Sydney University, she is a journalism Major. Ellie has worked with Universal Media, The Cova Project and for a range of other organisations. In 2024, Ellie was named Young Writer of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.