Foster Care Victoria

With These Hands is an exhibition which seeks to create a space for people to reflect upon the expereince of Child Sexual Abuse. The event will open on the 22nd of May. The Chapel on Station Gallery is located on the corner of Station St and Ellingworth Parade, Box Hill.

Sadly, many children who come into care have experienced some form of abuse, including sexual abuse. While the impacts and supports for children who have been victims of abuse is covered in the training program offered by agencies, it remains, for many carers, one of the most emotionally challenging aspects of the role.

*This photo belongs to the Herald Sun

Yesterday’s article, Hard Times Foster and Carer Crisisin the Herald Sun has sparked quite a response with many calls to the Centre for Excellence from people wanting to find out more which is fantastic news.

Although the online comments appear to show a) a misunderstanding in the community about foster care and how the system works, and b) some disgruntled past and potential carers frustrated at a lack of support and resources.

To the latter category of people, I hear you and I agree, though I think we should all raise our hats to both DHS workers and foster care workers alike for their perseverance in a thankless, stressful, under-paid, under-staffed, under-funded and under-resourced job. While I am sorry to hear of negative experiences of foster care all I can say is that we are all doing the best we can.

To the former category, removal of children is never an easy decision and is always a last resort. This issue is completely separate Apology made on February 13th which acknowledged the injustice of forced removal based on race, rather than on the safety and best interests of the child. Foster care is the temporary care of a child where the hope is always on reunification with the birth family. Foster carers are not expected to be perfect but it is a responsibility of those in the field to make sure that a child is safe from harm and provided with adequate care.

Although foster care is a challenging role at times, as Kylie will attest, it is also an immensely rewarding one.

Anyone interested should consider coming along to an information evening, check the events listing for details.

Maroondah Leader had this report in last week’s paper.

Indeed, homelessness and “Teens sleep rough” are the hidden daily tragedies occurring throughout Melbourne’s East. Similarly, the daily miracles undertaken by foster carers everyday are just as hidden. With steadily declining numbers of carers available, foster care placements for children and young people of all ages are becoming increasingly difficult to make.

In the context of the Australia’s Homeless Youth report’s findings that “Young people with a ‘care background’ are over-represented in the youth homeless population”, carers involved in the Adolescent Care Program (ACP) focus on the transferal of life skills towards independence. In this way, each young person will hopefully see a string of opportunities in front of them as they venture into adulthood, rather than insurmountable obstacles leading to cycles of risk and harm.

The Australia’s Homeless Youth report was a timely reminder of why foster care is the responsibility of us all.

Anglicare Victoria invites anyone who would like to know more about foster care to an Information Evening or call 1300 889 335.

This blog is becoming “Life Matters Watch” but I would like to begin by commending their coverage of the foster care issue over the past weeks/months.

This morning Joe Tucci of the Australian Childhood Foundation (you may remember his name from the Mandatory Reporting of Abuse debate we discussed a few weeks a ago) and Kate Cairns were the guests talking about Therapeutic foster care or “advanced” foster care as it was called on the program.

I’ve had quite a bit to do with AChFover the past few months and have found their knowledge not only interesting but a valuable resource for foster carers. I also know many of the carers who have done the Circle training in particular run by AChf and who are involved with the Circle program and all the reports I have heard have been fantastic. Carers say that the access to professional advice and supports, as well as the neurological understanding of trauma as explained in the training all combined to help their ability to care for children. But one of the most important aspects of this particular program has been the elevation of the status of the carer to where carers are included in discussion and consulted about their knowledge of the child to work towards more complete care plans. This process has been referred to the professionalisation of foster care.

While these are all wonderful things, Sarah McDonald’s initial questions really went to the heart of the issue: Can we expect this of carers; that is, 24 hour, 7 day a week volunteers given only modest reimbursements? Its a huge job these amazing families are undertaking and we desperately need more to do the same. Victoria is leading the way with programs, hopefully Victoria can also lead Australia towards greater recognition of carers through funding and other crucial supports. Recognition and respect throughout our community of foster care as a valid and important role is key to getting more people involved, and in encouraging carers to continue.

As an aside for current carers in Melbourne’s East, AChF is running training again in June. Contact your caseworker or the Recruitment team in Bayswater if you would like more details.

Media this morning is buzzing with 2020 ideas and debates, but I’ve searched and searched and found very few reported debates about what the foster care system should look like in 2020.

Indigo of the previous post has been involved in quite an informed debate here.

I’ll keep watching and hoping that more of the ideas discussed will filter through and hopefully bring about change.

The positive aspect of the Summit though was a really strong focus on preventative supports, which is an important contributor to the wider community solutions, together with strong mechanisms to support the essential contributions of foster carers.

An interesting debate has been sparked here after this post:

Researcher Indigo Willing, who was adopted from a Vietnamese orphanage in 1972, will propose a way to tackle the twin problems of long waiting lists for couples seeking overseas adoptions, and the chronic shortage of foster parents for children in Australia. Ms Willing said that if parents waiting to adopt were automatically asked to become foster parents — either instead of or as well as adopting from overseas — both problems would abate.

Though this plan looks like it ticks all boxes, experience tells us that its probably not as easy that. Firstly, the understanding that foster care is temporary care of someone else’s child is a cornerstone of the provision of healthy relationships to develop between child and carer, and if possible, with the birth family. There are often emotional obstacles for carers if there is a confusion of this role with other roles such as adoptive parents, where the child becomes your own.

Secondly, our state has worked really hard to create a screening process to make sure prospective carers are motivated by a desire to care for children in need. I think it would be problematic to blur the boundaries of the motivations towards one where foster caring is a means to another desire, and I’m not convinced that people in this situation, that is, forced to care, would be able to provide adequate care for that child.

Having said that, I myself have spoken at an inter-country adoption information session about foster care, inviting people who already have broad views about what makes a family to consider this area with significant success.

What we should focus on, in my opinion, is improving the supports around carers, as well as our valuing of the foster caring role to encourage more people to willingly take responsibility for caring for our neighbours.

This morning on Radio National’s Life Matters two issues related to Out of Home Care were raised in very interesting ways.

The first came from a (former?) foster carer who was raising the problem of bureaucrats vs what she calls “realocrats”- those people with real experiences of the issues on the ground. Helen Kinniburgh certainly made a good case for what I think many of us have been frustrated with after seeing report after report, recommendation after recommendation without avenues for the voices of foster carers and other volunteers (and workers in various fields I should add) being heard.

While we certainly advocate for changes as we see fit, the summit would have really benefited from some of this rich experience.

The second was from CBC in Canada and looked at Grandparents who care in a kinship care arrangement. Again, I think it is vitally important for these under the radar issues to be given a platform in the hope that supports will follow.

The Youth Homelessness report has a specific section on Out of Home care (Section 9, beginning pg 225). This is part of the introduction:

Young people with a ‘care background’ are over-represented in the youth homeless population. The 2006 national census of homeless school students found that close to 15 per cent of homeless students may have had an experience in state care. In Project i’s sample of 200 young people entering SAAP services in Melbourne about one in five had been in care and protection at some point. Chamberlain and Johnson found that 42 per cent of adults and young people in SAAP have been in state care at some stage of their lives. UnitingCare Burnside (NSW) suggested several reasons for this:
Young people in care or those who have been in care have a heightened vulnerability to homelessness due to:

- lack of or disrupted familial connections;

- childhood trauma which in some cases may lead to learning disabilities and early disengagement with the education system;

- difficulty in finding foster carers for young people, particularly those with difficult behaviours arising out of their pre-care experience;

-multiple placements resulting in a lack of community connections.

 

These are just some of the reccomendations:

 

Recommendation 9.1

The NYC Inquiry recommends that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission [HREOC] consider a national inquiry into care and protection. The Inquiry should:

- review policy and practice on care and protection from a human rights perspective;

- consider new Federal-state cooperative programs and initiatives, especially early intervention and prevention in terms of family and community support;

- advise on what reforms, structures and processes are required;

- provide advice on how change might best be implemented and the scale of reforms and resources needed.

Recommendation 9.5

The NYC Inquiry recommends that all jurisdictions urgently review the level of funding provided to their care and protection programs, and develop a remedial strategy for addressing the selection, training and support of staff as well as the real need for care and protection services in the community.

 

 

A rather downbeat article which shares the findings of research into abuse in care from the 1940s onwards - here .

This report is very interesting reading for anyone curious about the kinds of people who foster (demographics etc.), the most popular and most difficult ages of children to place and the intensions of foster carers into the future.

I’ve received it with mixed feelings, a lot of it I was pretty aware of, but as time goes on and each report is released, the number of carers closing in on their well earned retirement looms large, with most of our carers being 50-54 and many having fosteredt for over 10 years.