Caroline Carroll did not look forward to the rare occasions that a welfare officer visited her foster home.
"We used to be dressed up and sat on the lounge," Ms Carroll recalled of the five foster homes she lived in from 15 months to eight years of age.
"The foster parent was always in the room with us, and you were threatened with death before that happened.
"There was plenty of abuse in my foster placements, but … I was never game to talk about it."
Ms Carroll, now the chairwoman of the Alliance for Forgotten Australians, was giving evidence as the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse continued its examination into Australia's Out of Home Care system on Tuesday.
The commission heard that children in care needed someone to talk to who was completely independent of their foster carers.
"Kids need to be able to talk to a separate person, not necessarily the same person that is coming to talk to the foster parents … so they can build up a trust and feel safe talking and disclosing if they need to," Ms Carroll said.
But the CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, Joe Tucci, told the commission that there were now virtually no opportunities for children in care to talk openly about what they were going through.
"What we've done around the country is we've removed things like community visiting programs," Mr Tucci said.
"We've almost made it impossible for children to be asked for feedback about their experiences of the systems that they engage in, whether it is out of home care or school."
However, the biggest problem facing the Out of Home Care system, Mr Tucci said, was a lack of carers.
"I think the biggest issue … is the paucity of carers coming through and the numbers of carers leaving the system," he said.
The result, he said, was that proper training and assessment processes were not being followed.
Most worryingly, some carers were not undergoing Working with Children Checks before having vulnerable children placed into their care.
The hearing continues.
