Sixteen members of the Care Leavers Australasia Network will stage a silent protest in front of Health Minister Sussan Ley’s Albury office on Friday to call for a national redress scheme to be implemented.

CLAN member Rhonda Janetzki said no real commitment had been made to the scheme since it was recommended by the royal commission in September. 

“The only way it can be done properly, with dignity for all of us, is through the federal government,” she said.

“All the things that are set out to help care leavers at the moment, support an organisation who has, in the past, been one of the perpetrators.

“If we need assistance with anything, we’re supposed to go to them – how many times do you get assaulted and hit down by one organisation?”

Mrs Janetzki said many care leavers were still grappling with the effects of their past, decades on. 

“A lot of people have come out of orphanages finding out their names for the first time – they spent 10 years as a locker number,” she said. 

“There’s so many people that came out of those institutions that just couldn’t handle life, and killed themselves.”

There are about 30 CLAN members on the Border, but Roy Janetzki believed there were a number of care leavers who had not spoken about their past.

“People won’t say anything until their 50s or 60s, or even on their deathbed,” he said. 

“We need people to speak out so they don’t take their story to the grave.”

Mr Janetzki has followed the royal commission closely and said the redress scheme was the only way forward.

“In a state set-up, it’s been a bad failure,” he said. 

In January, Attorney-General George Brandis and Social Services Minister Christian Porter released a joint statement that discussions would begin to lead a national redress scheme. 

The royal comission recommended the scheme by introduced no later than 1 July 2017.