Dramatic drop in foster cases hailed ‘a turning point’ for Aboriginal children
TWENTY per cent fewer Aboriginal children are being taken from their families and put into foster care, in what is being hailed a historic turning point for the state.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
TWENTY per cent fewer Aboriginal children are being taken from their families and put into foster care, in what is being hailed a historic turning point for the state.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the dramatic drop last year — the largest in the past decade — comes as radical new counselling reforms help NSW case workers keep kids with their families.
The results “mean everything” to Families Minister Pru Goward. “This is what your life’s work is for, to make people’s lives better,” Ms Goward said yesterday.
“These children are so powerless — they more than anybody need a break.”
The 1058 Aboriginal children who entered the foster care system last year was down from 1318 in 2016 and 1363 in 2015.
Ms Goward said the reduction in the number of kids in care did not mean there were fewer cases of need, or that some cases were being ignored — but that the government’s reforms were making it safer for children to stay with their families.
New “family group conferencing” invites a vulnerable child’s extended family around a table to come up with a plan to prevent the child being taken into care.
“You’d be amazed what happens when you get a family around a table,” Ms Goward said.
“The sister who had been living in Bourke says ‘I had no idea this was a problem, I’ll take holidays’.
“The brother says ‘I’ll make sure I get her out of bed in the mornings’.”
These are our future citizens and you need to make sure your future citizens have the best start to be able to go out to the workforce instead of relying on welfare.
The government also implemented new targets for case workers to see one in three at-risk children, up from one in five, allowing them to intervene sooner and get parents’ lives back on track before their children are removed.
MORE
PLEA TO FIND BOY, 11, A LOVING FOSTER FAMILY
CHILDREN IN CARE PUT IN SAME MOTELS AS PAROLEES
EDITORIAL: KEEPING KIDS AT HOME
Ms Goward, who is on her second stint as the state’s community services minister, said the government was also getting better at finding family members to care for children rather than sending them to unknown carers.
“We haven’t done this by just saying to our community service centres ‘Take 20 per cent fewer kids’,” Ms Goward said.
“I’ve seen figures where there’s been a drop and then ... you find out they’ve just been told ‘Oh, we can’t take them’.
“Then you see deaths rise and actually nothing’s changed for that child — they’ve just been left.
“This is different. This is the real deal.”
Ms Goward said there was no doubt that children were better off in the long run being kept out of the foster care system and staying with their own families.
“We know that children in foster care often have very poor outcomes because the system is so uncertain for a child,” Ms Goward said.
“They are more likely to be in juvenile justice, not finish Year 12, be homeless, have teenage pregnancies, be on welfare — their outcomes are not as good.”
Ms Goward said that the government still wanted to do better for these children. “The state, everybody, should care about this,” she said.
“These are our future citizens and you need to make sure your future citizens have the best start to be able to go out to the workforce instead of relying on welfare.”
Ms Goward said she believed a rollout of cognitive behaviour therapy for families, which The Daily Telegraph revealed last year, would also increase the number of children staying with their families.