Rachel wants to give the care she missed

A LACK of case workers is hurting children in care, says one former state ward.

WHEN Rachel was 15, she was in the care of Victoria's Department of Human Services, living in one of its youth residential homes.

She was supposed to be assigned a case worker who would keep an eye on her and call her every fortnight and see her once a month.

But often she was not assigned a case worker. Others would call her every six to eight months and there was no communication between the revolving carers about how she was coping.

"It was really hard," Rachel told The Australian yesterday. "Often I didn't have a case worker to talk to at all, and I always had to go to the duty worker who was a complete stranger. It was like talking about my problems to a stranger on the street."

Rachel, who did not want to give her last name, is now 18 after spending six years in the department's care, bouncing from residential care to foster homes.

She said she left home at 12 after her grandmother died and things did not work out with her parents. She said she lived at many different department homes, often being moved every couple of months.

"Once . . . I was put in a house in Greensborough and I was going to school in Maribyrnong (across the other side of the city)," Rachel said. "I had to get two trains and trams to get to school and I ended up dropping out." Rachel, who is a national youth delegate for Create Foundation, which helps children and young people in care, said she was shocked by the lack of case workers in the system as revealed by the Ombudsman's report yesterday.

She said the department was plagued by communication problems and needed more resources.

"We also need more communication between the current workers. Everyone needs to be informed if they are going to help a young person make the right decisions about their life." She said she felt like she "fell through the cracks" of the system because she did not have as many problems as other young people in care.

Rachel said she did not receive a transitional plan, as she was supposed to, to prepare her for life in the "real world".

"I had no cooking skills, I didn't even know how to turn on a washing machine. And I had no idea how to get basics like identification, birth certificates and things like that."

She said she had been involved with the Create Foundation since she was 15 and found the organisation helped her feel empowered and take charge of her life. Rachel plans to go back to school and train to become a residential care worker so she can help children in care so they might receive more support than she did.