Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in foster care

October 8, 2008 at 11:09 am | In Issues for Fostering, Media | Leave a Comment

All In The Mind on Radio National recently had a very interesting program about Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and the strong correlation with foster care.

… a large proportion of these children, again about 66%, were in foster care and what was also of extreme concern to us was that about 40% of them had a sibling with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, indicating that we’d missed opportunities for prevention of another severely affected child.

Encouragingly, when speaking about a particular case of a child who was placed with this carer at 5 years old (now 15 years old) who has a diagnosis she said

… When we speak about it’s not more a label it’s just helping her understand it’s not my fault, I’m not really this bad person that other people would have me believe that I am, but there’s a reason why I’m not coping as other people do.