An outpouring of gratitude during Foster Care Week

As we close out Kinship Care Week, Child Protection Week and Foster Care Week at the Centre we want to extend an enormous message of gratitude for kinship carers and foster carers and their work in communities throughout Australia. These remarkable individuals, who live and work amongst us, quietly get on with doing the extraordinary by providing vulnerable children with a safe and nurturing home during challenging times. Their kindness and dedication have a profound and lasting impact on the lives of vulnerable young people.

As a peak for the child and family service sector, we see evidence not just from research but also from our member programs that shows kids placed into home-based care – with family or close friends in a kinship home or in foster care homes do better.

They are happier, feel safer, and are more connected to their communities. The support they receive in foster care benefits their engagement with education and their health outcomes.

This Foster Care Week, the Centre worked with Mathew Buck and Rachael Buck who generously shared their experience fostering over 150 children over the past decade.

Mat is the senior coach for the Carlton Football Club AFLWomen and Rachael is a school principal in Geelong. With three children of their own and busy full-time jobs – and the exciting start to the 2024 AFLW season – their story shows that if you want to make a difference in a young person’s life, you can find ways to fit foster care into your family life.

As teachers, Mat and Rachael saw the need for foster carers in their community and knew it was something they could do. They see foster care as a way they can give back.

The family provides respite and emergency care through MacKillop Family Services, working around their schedules to ensure they can offer support when needed. Recently, they welcomed a child into their home permanently, and they continue to offer weekend respite for two siblings.

Mat and Rachael both talk about the joy the whole family feels when they can share their home and family life with children who are having a difficult time. Mat says his boys are excited when they have new friends to stay and play with, and he’s incredibly proud that his sons are becoming kind and caring young men who understand that people who are struggling sometimes need a little help. Their family is proof that fostering doesn’t just change the lives of children in care, it enriches the lives of carers as well.

Being a foster carer can be challenging, but the impact they have on kids and the rewards when children in their care thrive far outweigh those difficulties.

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Right now, there are children and young people all over Victoria who are having a really difficult time and need a safe, caring foster home and people to support them.

We need all kinds of carers to support all kinds of kids, and we need them all across Victoria. We want kids to remain in their local communities, to continue at school with familiar and trusted teachers, to be in contact with their friends, and to be able to continue to participate in sports or community activities.

But there aren’t enough new carers coming into the system to meet demand.

Across the state, there are around 9000 children in out-of-home care, with 80 per cent going to family or kinship homes, about 15 per cent in foster care and a small number in short-term retainer homes, while foster care homes are found for them or in residential care.

Demand for foster care homes across Victoria has been stable over the past few years, with between 1300 and 1500 children in care on any night. These numbers are always shifting – kids might come into foster care for a night or a few days while kinship homes are organised for them or a situation at home is resolved so they can return safely.

The goal of out-of-home care is always for families to be reunited and for kids to get back home with their parents. Finding cultural connections for kids from indigenous and migrant communities is incredibly important. Indigenous children continue to be disproportionately represented in out-of-home care, accounting for almost 30 per cent of all kids in care in Victoria. We risk another stolen generation, disconnected from country and culture, if we can’t support our ACCOs in the work they do to support Aboriginal children and their families.

The Centre and foster care agencies continue to provide a shared foster care recruitment service through Fostering Connections in Victoria. It delivers an ongoing state-wide recruitment campaign and provides information on the process of becoming a foster carer through its website and call centre. Fostering Connections holds regular information sessions for people thinking about becoming foster carers and then connects people with the agencies that work in their areas.

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But we need more people to step up.

Not enough new caregivers are signing up to become foster carers and going through accreditation to replace those who are leaving. In 2022-23, there was a shortfall of 305 foster care homes .

Our market research tells us that many people have thought about becoming foster carers, but few take the next step toward becoming one, and there are various reasons for this.

It can feel like a big step. Factors like the rising cost of living, housing pressures, and changes in family life, such as dual-income households, are influencing people’s decisions to do it. During Covid lockdowns, a lot of spare bedrooms became home offices, and new hybrid working practices.

There are still some very conservative views of what foster care is and what an ideal family should be, even though that’s far from the reality of family life. It’s not just couples who can become foster carers; many single people, same-sex couples, people who rent or live in shared houses, young and older people can be foster carers.

Foster care isn’t just long-term or permanent placements. Most carers start with respite or emergency care, choosing the times that having a child in their care works for them, before moving into short-term or longer-term fostering.

Our agencies work really hard to support and retain the foster carers they have. Many offer help with school drop-offs and pickups or before and after-school care for people who work full-time. They can assist with medical appointments and provide training and advice to help foster carers support kids in their care. In some areas a central hub provides drop in support and organised social events for kids and carers.

This Foster Care Week we encourage anyone who has had the thought to take the next step and find out what foster care could look like in your household. Please call the Fostering Connections team on 1800 031 088 or visit www.fosteringconnections.com.au. If you know someone who is already a foster carer, reach out for contacts at the agency that supports them.

This post first appeared on LinkedIn here