Darling Downs and South West residential care placements double

There are growing calls for action after the ballooning cost of residential care services were revealed, with one child costing almost $2m dollars to house for one year.

The ballooning cost of Queensland’s residential care system has been revealed with the Department of Child Safety confirming it spent almost $2m to care for one child in the Darling Downs in one year.

Figures tabled in the Queensland parliament show 136 young people were in group homes across the Darling Downs and South West in 2015 but this has since increased to 444 in 2023.

The cost to house our highest need child in 2015 was less than $600,000 but has now more than doubled to $1.9m.

Residential care was intended to be a temporary solution to house young people who cannot be returned to the families, but for which the department cannot find a suitable, long term alternative, such as foster care or kinship care.

Children are placed together in homes across the city and are cared for by social workers on a 24 hours roster.

The growth of residential care in the Darling Downs and Southwest is tracking ahead of demand in other Queensland regions.

There are 444 young people in group homes across the Darling Downs and South West. Photo: Cade Mooney.

According to the departments’ recent residential care review, as of June 30, 2023, there were 11,593 children and young people in care in Queensland, up from 9647 in 2019.

That review found that the increased pressure of this demand placed on the foster and kinship care system led to a spike in the reliance on residential care.

On June 30, 2019 there were 951 young people in residential care but by June 30, 2023 that number had almost doubled to 1763, with 747 of these young people identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

Tom Allsop, chief executive of PeakCare, the industry body representing residential providers, said the pressure to meet unprecedented child safety demand was especially great in the bush.

“Regional areas in particular don’t have enough foster and kinship carers to meet the current need, requiring the Queensland government to continue increasing its over-reliance on residential care to ensure a safe place for children is available when it’s needed,” he said.

While it can take many months for a new foster care family to be assessed and approved to care for children, Mr Allsop said the unprecedented demand has resulted in the Queensland government funding more and more residential care placements which are provided by non-government organisations and can be established very quickly.

“Across Australia we are seeing our foster carer numbers reduce and significant reform is needed if we are going to turn this around,” he said.

“We know many foster carers are struggling to make ends meet. For many carers, even being able to afford a spare bedroom is becoming increasingly out of their reach.

“We have never seen more demand on the child protection system and when there are simply not enough family-based care options in a community, residential care becomes the default option.

“We need to invest in growing these alternatives if we are going to turn this around.”

Chief executive of PeakCare QLD, Tom Allsop. Picture: Richard Walker

Queensland is falling behind other states and now provides 40 per cent of Australia’s residential care placements despite only having 21 per cent of the nation’s children-in-care.

About 31 per cent of children in residential care are under 12 and about 30 per cent have a disability.

In our region the average cost of housing a child in residential care is about $440,000 per year, which compares to about $30,600 per year for a foster care placement.

That demand is expected to get worse after one of the industry’s largest providers, Mercy Community, announced it would transition out of foster and kinship care, residential care, and supported independent living services in a bid to plug a $9m hole in its budget.

The charity has about 730 foster and kinship carers, who as of the latest available annual report cared for 1310 children.

Toowoomba South MP David Janetzki said the government’s over-reliance on residential care in recent years has had devastating consequences.

“I have spoken with a former resi-care worker who said children were referred to as ‘contracts’ for cash which is just appalling,” Mr Janetzki said.

“These children have suffered unimaginable horrors which are rarely published – but it is happening every day in our region.

“So many tears have been shed in my office through stories of our local children being raped, beaten, tortured, tossed against walls like ragdolls, neglected, fed out of dog bowls, tasered with cattle prods – it is truly heartbreaking.”

Toowoomba South MP David Janetzki. NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

The department has released its Residential Care Roadmap which has set out ambitious targets to develop new models of care, consult more with children in care, develop a more therapeutic approach to care and increase the number of family unifications.

Mr Janetzki said the new road map was “too little, too late”.

“There is a generation of young people who have been failed by a broken residential care system,” he said.

“Too many young Queenslanders are living in unsafe situations, leaving them vulnerable to a life of crime and ending up in the youth justice system.”

For his part, Mr Allsop, who co-wrote the road map with the department and other industry stakeholders, said a whole-of-government approach was needed.

“We need to focus on investing in the services and supports that prevent children and families from coming into contact with the child protection system in the first place,” he said.

“Ensuring every child and family has timely access to things like community health services, education, early learning, drug and alcohol support, housing, and domestic and family violence support is critical in helping to keep families together.”

A Department of Child Safety spokeswoman said demand on the child protection system remained high and was driven by the continued impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, population growth, cost of living pressures and increasingly complex issues faced by many families.

“Every child deserves to be supported and our residential care services are an important part of a suite of placement options available to keep children safe, particularly for children with high need behaviours, disabilities requiring 24-hour medical care and large sibling groups,” she said.

“We remain committed to building a strong service system that offers quality and choice to children and their families.”