When out of home care fails to care
Original source: New England Times
Author: Marie Low
In October last year, a report to the New South Wales Government found the out-of-home care system in NSW was not fit for purpose and was failing to meet the needs of children and young people.
The results of the System Review into Out-of-Home Care report were no surprise to not-for-profit organisation Adopt Change, who operate in New England.
Adopt Change is the name behind the My Forever Family Program in New South Wales, and in 2024, supported about 60 households in the New England and Northern NSW through its programs.
“The report highlights challenges that we’ve been aware of for years,” Adopt Change CEO Renee Leigh Carter says.
“While there are areas of progress, significant improvements are still needed to ensure the needs of children are consistently met and prioritising stability, healing and long-term outcomes.”
“Children shouldn’t spend their childhood in a system, with the government as a parent. They need to grow up in family homes.”
There are close to 14,000 children in what is known as “out-of-home care” in New South Wales through the system administered by the Department of Communities and Justice. Forty-five percent of those children and young people are Aboriginal.
The report notes that in 30 June, 2024, 7,632 of these children and young people were in “relative/kinship care” staying with a family member, 5,162 were in foster care, and 904 were in residential care. Residential care includes programs like intensive therapeutic care and significant disability care.
There were also disturbing results included in another recent report – the Special Inquiry into Children and Young People in Alternative Care Arrangements (ACA), by the Office of the Advocate for Children and Young People. The report found worrying statistics about the use of hotels, motels and other settings for emergency out-of-home care (OOHC).
As of 30 June 2023, there were 118 children and young people in ACAs, including 26 children and young people in hotels and motels, 37 in serviced apartments and 55 in short-term rentals including caravan parks.
“It is reported that in the 2022-23 financial year, ACAs cost NSW taxpayers approximately $100 million, with DCJ [Department of Communities and Justice] data indicating that the average cost of an ACA is $965,000 per annum,” the report said.
In plain English, that is a cost of close to $1 million a child a year.
The report found most of those children and young people were in “emergency care” for more than three months.
Both reports concluded that the system is, simply, failing children who are already living through the trauma of being taken from their home or being without a home.
According to the System Review into Out-of-Home Care, the NSW system is “overly complex, fragmented and slow to respond in the best interests of children and young people”.
To add to the problems, NSW is losing the mainstay of the care system – foster parents.
The review found there were close to 14 percent fewer authorised carers in NSW in 2024 than in 2021.
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