Tax-free salary could attract people to quit working to foster troubled children
A PLAN to offer people a salary to quit their job and look after the most troubled children in state care is being considered by the Liberal Government.
- NSW to pay specialist foster carers to take in most troubled children
- Desperate need in SA for more foster carers
A PLAN to offer people a salary to quit their job and look after the most troubled children in state care is being considered by the Liberal Government.
Child Protection Minister Rachel Sanderson is monitoring a trial in New South Wales that offers a $75,000 tax-free pay cheque to people with specialist skills who are willing to exit their career to care for certain foster children.
They would be expected to dedicate their efforts to one child for between six months and a year in an attempt to enable them to reunite with their birth parents or foster family
Currently, it can cost more than $600,000 a year to house children with disabilities or complex behaviour prompted by trauma in state-run homes, with staff working eight-hour shifts.
Specialist foster carers receive an allowance of about $45,000 a year to care for such children in their home but often hold another job to accrue benefits such as superannuation.
Asked by The Advertiser about the concept of paying professional foster carers, Ms Sanderson said: “Anything that could improve outcomes for vulnerable children in South Australia, including better support for our foster carers, is on the table”.
“I will take keen interest in the NSW Government trial findings and look forward to reading their evaluations,” she said.
The Nyland Royal Commission into the state’s child protection system recommended monitoring trials of professional foster care interstate “with a view to adopting or adapting a proven model”.
However, there are complexities to consider including industrial relations, occupational health and safety and tax implications given professional carers would technically be working at all hours of the day and night, and in their own homes rather than a workplace.
Frontline welfare workers want the NSW trial extended to SA .
“A lot of working professionals want to do fostering but they can’t justify leaving higher paid roles with superannuation unless it is somehow matched,” Centacare foster care program manager Amalie Mannik said. A paid salary “would change that narrative”.
Opposition child protection spokeswoman Jayne Stinson said SA should be open to instigating professional foster care if a workable model is proven successful.
The NSW trial will start with 20 carers and is expected to cost $4.87 million until mid-June 2020.
Nurses, teachers, school support officers, aged carers or youth workers would be ideal candidates.
Carers would be limited to one child at a time and supported by a team of specialists such as psychologists, social workers and family therapists.
The scheme is based on models operating in the UK, US and New Zealand.
To be a foster carer, visit childprotection.sa.gov.au