National call to say YES to A Home for Every Child, with campaign launched by Adopt Change CEO Renée Carter
National call to say YES to A Home for Every Child, with campaign launched by Adopt Change CEO Renée Carter; Directors Kerry Chikarovski and John O’Neill; and the support of Ambassadors and supporters Louise Ransome, Helen McCabe, Danielle Boutros, Lanai Scarr and Shelly Horton today.
The new campaign calls for the stadium-sized numbers of children living in out of home care to be able to GROW, LEARN, PLAY and THRIVE in safe, nurturing and stable environments.
To launch the November YESVEMBER campaign on Friday 1st November 2019, Adopt Change calls for action in supporting families and communities in caring for children who are unable to live safely at home, with the release of a new animated community service announcement.
Australia, Friday 1st November, 2019:
The number of children currently living in out-of-home care across Australia is enough to fill a football stadium. 45,756 children and young people are unable to live with their family of origin, frequently due to safety concerns, and yet too often are not provided with the stability they need to thrive.
This November, Adopt Change is calling on community and government to prioritise providing better futures for Australia’s children by saying YES to supporting children.
With a vision for a world where children can grow, learn, play and thrive with safety, nurture and stability, we need to ensure families are supported, and children have access to safe, nurturing and stable homes, schools and communities.
“It’s important we stand together as a nation to support our children and young people. To see them face outcomes such as homelessness, and not take significant measures to change this trajectory is not okay. We need to do better by our children by ensuring they have access to homes, schools and communities that provide them with the stability, nurture and safety that they need to thrive,” said CEO Renée Carter.
The Adopt Change campaign will see community members and celebrities alike sharing posts wearing the GROW, LEARN, PLAY, THRIVE t-shirts across November, and explaining what this means to them. The campaign seeks to show the level of community support across Australia for ensuring we change the trajectory for our children – reducing the number of children and young people from out of home care facing homelessness, interactions with the justice system, poor health and low educational outcomes. We can and should expect better outcomes for our children.
Carter said that in recent years there have been some positive steps by jurisdictions and federally to reduce the number of children coming into care, and providing more permanency options. However, she states there is still a long way to go before we can be confident that as a nation we are doing all we can to see better futures for our children and young people.
“Our community and government should not rest easy until we know that our children and young people can do the same. Children should know where they will be laying their head at night, that they will always have a warm meal, someone in their corner, and people to support them at home and at school. The proof for this will be when we can see a reduction of children in out of home care, and improved outcomes for those who experience out of home care. We should all stand for children and young people to be able to grow, learn, play and thrive in safe, nurturing and stable homes, schools and communities,” said Carter.
Adopt Change says there are many practical ways to show your support towards this vision, from participating in awareness-raising campaigns such as GROW, LEARN, PLAY, THRIVE; to opening your home as a foster or kinship carer, guardian or adoptive parent to a child in need; and to providing items for MyPack first night backpacks for children entering foster care. Information can be found on the Adopt Change website.
YESVEMBER launched at QVB Forecourt, Sydney on Friday 1st November and will continue across the month with ambassadors, politicians, celebrities and community members participating in the campaign.
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Adopt Change CEO Renée Carter is available for interview.
Media contact:
Michelle Stacpoole
Communications Manager
0414 398 114
media@adoptchange.org.au
Website: www.adoptchange.org.au
Instagram: https://instagram.com/adoptchangeau/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdoptChangeAU
About Adopt Change
Adopt Change has a vision for a world where all children can grow, learn, play and thrive in safe, nurturing and stable homes, schools and communities. It is our mission to support families and communities in caring for displaced children.
Adopt Change works to raise community awareness of the importance of meeting these rights for children; encourage reform and empower Australians to work towards all children having positive life outcomes. We support capacity building of families to ensure that vulnerable children are able to remain within their family of origin where possible. When that is not possible or safe, we advocate for other timely and permanent options.
We recognise the impacts of impermanency and trauma and we work to support families through workshops and online resources; research; pre- and post-permanency supports; trauma informed supports; information and community events; as well as working with governments, departments and the sector to address issues surrounding permanency for children.
Adopt Change operates the program My Forever Family NSW to recruit, train, support and advocate for foster carers, kinship carers, guardians and adoptive parents for children in out of home care.
National Adoption & Permanency Awareness Month in Australia is coordinated by Adopt Change to promote improvement to permanency legislation, policy and practice to facilitate a community where a child’s right to stability is prioritised. National Adoption Awareness Week was founded by Deborra-lee Furness in 2008.
About Renée Carter
Renée Carter is the CEO of Australian not-for-profit Adopt Change, which also operates the program My Forever Family NSW. She is also a member of the Institute Advisory Group for the Independent Research Centre Institute of Open Adoption Studies (The University of Sydney).
Renée has a strong background in communications and executive management, along with board level experience in the corporate and not-for-profit sectors and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (MAICD). Her experience includes three years as Chair of charity Child Abuse Prevention Service (CAPS), an organisation focused on early intervention, education and support of families and communities.
Renée is passionate about influencing policy and practice to deliver timely and effective outcomes for children, by garnering community, sector and government support.
