Our foster carers deserve our support

There can be no question that the carers who take on the task of fostering young people in need are a very special breed. The youths they open their homes to more often than not arrive traumatised and troubled, with a complex history of health and welfare problems.

Concerningly, NSW’s foster carers are leaving the system in droves, with nearly 1000 authorised carers quitting the system in the past year.

There are about 15,000 children and young people in the NSW child protection system, which is under pressure on several fronts, as reported by The Sun-Herald last year. This includes a shortage of caseworkers, delays in investigating reports of children believed to be at risk, and an over-reliance on emergency accommodation.

Foster carers say there are a number of reforms required to the child protection system.Credit: iStock

There is also a shortage of foster carers. There are only 11,000 households in NSW with one or more registered carers, which means just one-third of the children needing a foster placement will receive one. The shortage of carers has resulted in an increasing number of children being housed in residential care, consisting of facilities run by NGOs and private companies.

The people who take on the role of foster carers in our community are, quite rightly, prevented by law from being identified, to protect the young people in their care.

The Sun-Herald, along with our sister paper the Sydney Morning Herald, is committed to the principle of identifying sources, but we have respected the need for anonymity in our story today on the issues facing foster carers in NSW.

Reporter Amber Schultz has spoken to a number of foster carers who could not be identified by name, exploring the issues they believe need to be addressed to ensure that foster carer numbers grow instead of dwindle.

They have highlighted the ways they believe the system can be overhauled to stem the flow of carers leaving, and ensure existing and new carers feel supported.

Among the issues they see is the number of placements to which children are subjected – one in three children will have three or more placements in their time in care – as well as the level of financial support offered to foster parents.

There is also the failure to be able to adhere to the 2017 legislation to ensure that children do not spend longer than two years as a ward of the state, as a result of the systemic issues. Statistics show that about half the children are staying in the system for more than five years.

Hand-in-hand with this issue is the need to address why reforms to make it easier to adopt are not making the pathway to adoption smoother. In 2022-23 just 60 children were adopted from out-of-home care. Carers say the inability to adopt creates a sense of insecurity for the children in their care, and limits their ability to make decisions on behalf of the children.

Foster parents also highlight the problem of consistency and continuity of communication between the Department of Communities and Justice, different agencies and birth parents, exacerbated by the caseworker vacancy rate. They say children are arriving in new foster homes with medical and behavioural histories which are not being communicated to new foster families, according to the carers interviewed for our report.

The lack of regular and consistent respite care for foster parents, given the heavy burden on many carers of children with a high level of need, is another byproduct of the overall shortage of carers.

The Sun-Herald is not suggesting the blame for these issues lies at the feet of NSW Minister for Families and Communities Kate Washington, who has inherited a complex child protection system. But we urge her to prioritise reforming it.

We welcome her commitment to provide more support for the people who take on the challenging task of fostering and listen to the suggestions of those who are on the front line making this valuable contribution to our community.

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