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The Importance Of Foster Care

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Foster care refers to the out of home care of children aged between 0-17 years in Australia, who for a variety of possible reasons are no longer able to live with their primary caregiver.
Foster care is arranged formally with intervention by courts or a voluntary agreement or court protection order following a child protection intervention.
The National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2009-2020 says that foster care is a last resort for keeping children safe. It is always preferable to provide support to the families and children so that the family can stay together. However, when the home environment is not safe, the focus becomes on providing children with the much-needed safety and stability necessary to develop a sense …show more content…

As a result of these National Standards, all children come under the care of the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and National Framework Implementation Working Group. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare is responsible for collecting data to report against each of the standards.
Although the data is not yet complete, and collection and analysis of the data continues, there is enough information to say that as of June 30, 2016 there were 46,500 children living in foster care. The number of children in foster care has risen every year of the past five years (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2017). In four years from June 2012 to June 2016, the number of children in foster care rose by 17%, an extra 6827 children.
The 2015-6 AIHW statistics show that 93.6% of all children living in foster care are in home-based care. 48.6% of these children are in a formal foster care placement with a family member, and 38.7% are in foster care placements where the carers are not of any familial relation. The vast majority of these children stay in their placement for more than 12 months. (AIHW, …show more content…

A 2013 Australian study showed that trust was lacking in all relationships of children in foster care with their carers and social workers when they were in changing placement situations. (McDowell 2013 and Gaskell 2010).
After placement instability, another major concern is the recruitment and maintenance of enough carers to cope with the demand. (Delfabbro et al., 2007). Some agencies are even pushing for the professionalisation of foster carers, in an effort to help the growing number of children coming into the system with severe behavioural problems (Butcher, 2005); and recommends that much more training and upskilling is required in an informed response to these children’s complex needs (McHugh & Pell, 2013).
Stability of children with families isn’t the only issue. It is also a major issue of concern within the foster care system as casework instability is quite extreme too. In one study, 35% of young people reported having in excess of five case-workers assigned to them. Children and teens need continuity and stability with their caseworker in order to build an effective relationship, to build trust and security for them. (McDowall,

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