WHO CARES ...
An educational resource for
Aboriginal foster carers & kinship carers
What is Foster Care & Kinship Care ?
It is often important for foster children to maintain links with their birth family – mum, dad, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles or grandparents – through regular contacts
Foster carers offer children and young people a safe and caring home when they are unable to live with their birth family. This can often be a child's first positive experience of family life.
There are many different types of foster care
1. Respite placements
2. Emergency placements
3. Short term placements
4. Long term placements
5. Therapeutic placements
Foster carers offer children and young people a safe and caring home when they are unable to live with their birth family. This can often be a child's first positive experience of family life.
Foster carers can choose care for multiple children at once, unless exceptions are made or where there is a bigger group of brothers and sisters. If a carer has their own children, the number and age of the children will be taken into consideration before more children are placed in their care.
As well as providing day-to-day care for children and young people, foster carers are expected to advocate on behalf of the child, support their educational, health and social wellbeing, manage sometimes challenging behaviour, keep records, attend meetings and work with a wider care team, as well as developing their own skills.
Foster carers play a big part in assisting foster children to maintain relationships with extended family.
What skills do Foster Carer & Kinship Carer need ?
Foster carers come from all backgrounds and bring a wide range of life and work experiences. Foster carers receive training and support to help them develop skills to meet the needs of children in care.
Foster carers commit time and energy to children in their care. Being someone for them to trust, talk to and celebrate achievements is important, as is having the patience, resilience, and confidence to deal with situations which do not go to plan.
Foster carers also need to be observant to recognise when they need to step in or seek assistance to help deal with a particular situation.
Contact between kids and families
Contact arrangements involve the child or young person and their family members. They can include also extended family and friends.
Foster carers need to offer a consistent, reliable base from which children can connect with their families safely.
Every child should have their own contact plan which outlines all the arrangements in relation to contact. This plan should refer specifically to how the child will maintain links with and receive information about family and friends.
From face-to-face contact to overnight stays, letters, phone calls, emails, and texts, there are a number of different ways contact with families can take place.
However, not all children will have contact with their families.
Children must always be protected from people who are dangerous or pose risks to their physical or emotional wellbeing.
Saying goodbye ...
There are many reasons a fostering placement may come to an end, for example, the child may return to live with their birth family, or older teenagers may be ready to live independently.
Other times, the child will be moving on to live with other foster carers, possibly a place where they can stay long term. Foster carers can help make this as easy as possible by supporting the child and passing on useful information to the new foster carer or natural parent
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Sometimes, a child will move on because a placement simply isn’t working. Foster carers need to accept that there may be times that they will be unable to provide a child with the care they need. This does not make them a ‘failure’ as a foster carer, it simply means that in this case, someone else’s skills may be better suited to help that child.
Foster carers are not superhuman, and have the right to ask for a child to be moved if they feel that would be best for them and their family.