Children in Out-of-Home Care

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (14:59): My question is to the Minister for Education and Child Development. Does the minister agree that the best care for a child is in a family setting?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Education and Child Development, Minister for the Public Sector) (14:59): It's an incredibly general question, so I will try to unpack what my beliefs are. The ideal circumstance, where a family is able to provide a safe and nurturing environment for a child, is for the child to be in that family. We have seen many successful and happy cases of adoption and people being brought up by other parents; nonetheless, we have also seen a lot of cases, sadly, where even in a happy adoptive home or a happy fostering home there is a deep grief at not being with biological parents.

I think we have to accept, not only objectively but also from many people's subjective experience, that being in your own home, if at all possible, is the best place to be—but, as I say, if at all possible. Often, that's not the case. My view is that, where that's not possible, being in kinship care, which has increased by 700 per cent in this state in recent times, is a good approximation and is a near approximation. Being in foster care, again, in a nurturing and safe environment is good.

Sadly, for some children, residential care and, even more challengingly, emergency care are employed. I would rather that that wasn't necessary, and I am at the moment working on ways in which we can reduce that. I think we can all agree that, ideally, the closest to the creation of the sense of being part of a family that is stable, nurturing and safe is the best outcome, but we do have to accept that that is all too often not the case and we have to make other arrangements.

The SPEAKER: A supplementary.