Australia is ahead of most countries in the world in the deinstitutionalisation of protective child care, having closed all its institutions and dramatically reduced the availability of small group residential care. That Australia’s children are now almost exclusively in kinship care and foster care would appear at first blush to be an enviable achievement, and indeed many benefits are apparent. Ongoing concern about the difficulty of ensuring the quality of residential care has led to continuing efforts to further reduce the amount of residential care remaining. However, this has resulted in a number of unintended consequences, at times compromising the prerequisites for secure, nurturing family care.
This presentation will outline the current state of play in foster care, and issues arising as kinship care continues to grow like Topsy. It will be contended that a model of kinship care must have at its core a capacity for thorough assessment of care arrangements prior to placement, necessitating the availability of approved temporary care while the most appropriate kinship arrangement is determined. A model of protective kinship care also needs to incorporate the financial and non-financial supports needed when families assume protective care of children under circumstances that include highly disturbed and conflictual intra‑familial relationships, parental mental health issues and substance abuse, poverty, and compromised health. The Australian experience provides ample evidence that the wellbeing of children affected by abuse and trauma is very much dependent upon society’s capacity to support the wellbeing of those who provide their care for the long haul.
