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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-09-11 Daily Xml
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Foster and Kinship Care

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (12:22): I rise to move:

That this house—

(a) recognises Child Protection Week;

(b) recognises Foster and Kinship Care Week;

(c) acknowledges that protecting children and young people is everyone's responsibility;

(d) recognises the individuals, organisations and communities who have played their part in creating safer communities for children and young people;

(e) appreciates the invaluable work of foster and kinship carers and the contribution they make to the lives of children and young people; and

(f) recognises the enormous impact a foster or kinship carer can have in improving outcomes for children and young people who have faced significant challenges in their early life.

We are in Foster and Kindship Care Week at the moment. The role of foster and kinship carers is at the very heart of our child protection system. They are the beating heart of our care system and without them we simply would not have a system, or at least we would have a radically different system, a system that would be a lot more expensive and would obviously have quite a different dimension to it in terms of the type of care provided to children who really need the state's care and protection.

Foster and kindship carers have been critical to our child protection system, our formal legislated system, for many years. However, when we look back at the evolution of the family structure, foster carers, and in particular kinship carers, have always been there and have always been a part of bringing up children, not just in Australia but all over the world. That has been done in many different ways by many different cultures. But, really, foster and kinship carers have existed for a very long time, well before they were legislatively recognised.

Right now, there are more than 1,800—almost 1,900—foster and kinship carers in South Australia. Each one of them deserves our deep thanks for the job they do, and it is not a job in the traditional sense. They are classified as volunteers but they really give up a lot. They sacrifice a lot themselves, for their families and also financially for the good of someone else's children often, sometimes members of their extended family.

At the moment, of those 1,900 foster and kinship carers, about 57 per cent are kinship carers. I think that deserves noting. Both the previous government and the current government have worked hard to make sure that, wherever possible, children can stay within their families. I think it is good that we have seen an increase in the number of kinship carers, or the percentage of carers who are kinship carers; that is a great thing. The current government should be commended for its work on that as well as previous governments that have worked hard to ensure that that balance was achieved, and long may it continue.

I also want to point out that there is a type of kinship carer that is not recognised in those formal figures, and largely that is grandparents but also others. I can see the member nodding at me; she knows exactly what I am talking about. There are a large number of people who are not statutory carers, who take on the role of caring often for their grandchildren but also for other members of their family. They do not have formal arrangements. Out of the goodness of their heart, out of a need in their family, they take on the care of children and make sure that they are brought up without the intervention or the involvement of the state.

I think when we talk about Foster and Kinship Care Week, we should be talking about those recognised foster and kinship carers through the statutory system and also those who are informal or non-statutory carers who are also giving of their time and sometimes in much more trying and testing circumstances than those who may be able to lean on the assistance of the state sometimes.

I have mentioned this in this house in the past, but obviously I have a personal connection, particularly to kinship carers and grandparent carers. When I was quite little, when I was growing up, my family had some troubled times and, for a period of time, my sisters and I went to live with my grandparents—my grandfather and my step-grandmother. We went all the way from one side of the nation, from just outside of Perth, right across to a place called Byabarra, which had about 50 residents. It was out the back of Port Macquarie on the mid-north coast of New South Wales.

I think my grandparents had only met me once, maybe twice, in their whole life and suddenly these three little girls rocked up on their doorstep. Well, it was a little more organised than that. I will forever be grateful for them looking after my sisters and me at a time when we really needed it. It was a different kind of life. I realise now the huge sacrifice that they made, the huge contribution they made to my life and that of my sisters but also the life of my parents as well, giving us the opportunity to be stronger as a family.

I realise now the huge sacrifice that they made. They were expecting a retirement. Much like all grandparent carers who take on the role, they were expecting to be able to have some time to themselves to do some of the things that they wanted to do in retirement and they found that it did not quite pan out the way they might have envisaged. I always thought we were pretty well behaved, but now I look back and realise that maybe we were not always. Maybe we were quite a handful for them to have to deal with. I think it is a different experience when you are at that stage of your life, when you are in your 50s or your 60s or even your 70s, and you are taking on a parent job again.

I think it was a very tough line for them to walk, as well, between being a grandparent and a parent. When we think about our grandparents, we think about those special people who come into our lives on special occasions and spend special time with us. They pamper us and gives treats. They take us to the Royal Show and buy us a showbag. You have a very special relationship with your grandparents and they generally do not have to dole out too much discipline or look after the day-to-day tasks of running a household. However, grandparent carers have to do that. They have to be the disciplinarian. They have to be parents and grandparents as well.

Once I reached my 20s and 30s, I realised just how difficult their job was, even for a relatively brief time, and how it altered their relationships with me and our family. I also realised how grateful we should be for the contribution they made. I am sure there were also some financial impacts. They spent a lot of their money looking after us, as all grandparents do. For many grandparents, there are also health impacts. Raising a child when you are in your 20s or 30s is completely different from raising a child when you are in your 50s, 60s, 70s or even older.

There is also little respite available. There are structures, particularly if you are a recognised kinship carer, to enable you to have respite care; however, a lot of the time, grandparents do not take advantage of that, and they should. I call on them to take advantage of the support that is available to them. Often, they do not take advantage of that respite, and that can be mentally and physically taxing on older people who were not expecting to be caring for sometimes quite young children.

Some children come to grandparent care, kinship and foster care with complex emotional and behavioural issues. That is difficult for any parent or grandparent to deal with, but it is particularly difficult if you are in an environment where you may not be as supported as you might like to be. As last week was Child Protection Week and this week is Foster and Kinship Care Week, I also want to take the opportunity to recognise the role of professionals in the child protection sector. That includes people who work in the department—and I acknowledge the work of the minister in leading that department—and it also includes professionals working in the non-government and for-profit sectors as well.

These workers are often maligned, and that is a terrible, terrible thing. The actions of a few have often reflected very unfairly on members of a workforce who, by and large, are there because each wants to make a life out of helping young people, children and families to build stronger family units and prosper in South Australia. These jobs are sometimes low paid, or at least not very lucrative, and it requires a lot of training and ongoing professional development to hold one of these positions. That is a lot of investment for people who may not be earning the high wages we might see in other similarly trained professions. I think they deserve a lot of our recognitions.

Few fields have changed so much, certainly in the social services sector, in such a short space of time. If we look back at what we knew about child development 10 or 20 years ago, we have learned a lot about the development of a child's brain. We have learned a lot about the influences of social impacts and what they mean in terms of how a child grows up. Our professionals have had to keep on top of that.

In South Australia, they have seen a lot of change through a number of inquiries and royal commissions. Each time, there have been recommendations and changes to the way we do things, and they have had to keep up with that. That is quite a burden in any profession, and I think they should be recognised for the fact that they are constantly trying to improve and move with the times and applying the current knowledge we have to try to get the best outcomes for kids.

Sadly, they are often a target for criticism when a tragedy occurs. Sometimes that criticism is warranted, particularly when we look at the department. We need to hold a light up to these things to make sure that failings do not happen again and that we are keeping children safe. However, a lot of the time the fact is that, when a tragedy happens, we do see blame put on people who work in the system, whether that is in departments, NGOs or in other parts of the system.

I think sometimes we as a public have been too ready to blame workers who have actually dedicated their lives to working with incredibly troubled families in incredibly complex circumstances that, arguably, without their intervention may have been worse or may have come across a negative trajectory, at least. Where we really need to focus our blame when these tragedies happen is on adults who have not cared for children properly, who have neglected them, abused them or even whose actions have led to the deaths of children. That is where blame most properly lies.

All too often, I think that people who work in the sector feel they are being unfairly targeted for what happens in some incredibly complex environments. It is an extremely difficult job and there is no easy fix. We know that a lot of the interventions that we have, even our best interventions, do have high fail rates. Success is really measured on a scale. It is not the same as when you go to the GP, he diagnoses the problem, you are given some sort of remedy and then that problem is fixed. It does not work like that in the social services sector.

Human relationships are really hard to build, particularly with people who have not had the benefit of positive, productive and trusting human relationships in the past. That is the task of social workers in this space: to develop those relationships and to try to figure out what is best for children and what is best for families. We need to value our workers within the department, in our NGOs and private organisations much more than we currently do. We need to build the esteem of the profession and we need to boost our view of people working in the sector and better understand the complexity of their work. That goes for foster and kinship carers as well.

There is not a good understanding in the general public of what social work is, its challenges and how that work is executed on the ground. It is certainly a responsibility of mine and I think all parliamentarians in this place, when we are asked about how these things work, to wherever possible explain to our constituents the complexities that confront our social workers, particularly in the Department for Child Protection and the associated NGOs.

I will use this opportunity to touch on a few things that I learned while I was in the UK over the winter recess. I was very lucky to travel through Scotland and many parts of England and meet with council leaders, academics and NGOs who are working in the UK. The UK is held up as an example of maybe where some progress is being made and an example of some key projects that Australian jurisdictions are certainly looking at and seeing if we can adapt or adopt.

Time expired.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON (Adelaide—Minister for Child Protection) (12:38): I rise in support of this motion. Last week, during Child Protection Week, there were many events held across the state to acknowledge the work of all those in the community who support children and families impacted by child abuse.

Significantly, the eighth national conference of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, commonly known as SNAICC, was held in Adelaide. As the largest conference of its type in the Southern Hemisphere, over 1,000 delegates gathered to workshop and hear from a variety of stakeholders to assist in achieving their vision for their people. I had the great pleasure of speaking at the conference dinner and detailing the initiatives of my department and the government to improve outcomes for Aboriginal children and young people in care.

Last Friday, I opened the Q&A forum of the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN) in Adelaide. Building on the theme that 'child protection is everyone's business', this year saw the introduction of child development communication to promote the message that kids do well when parents are supported and that, to raise thriving kids, parents need support to navigate life's choppy waters.

As a government, we are better supporting families. We have committed $2.8 million into intensive family support services to work with families in the hope of keeping children safe at home. This has commenced in the north and will be starting soon in the west. Our government has also committed $1.6 million to family group conferencing to help identify and build capacity within families and avoid removals where it is possible to keep children safe at home. Our child and family assessment and referral networks are located in the north, the south, the west and Mount Gambier and work with families from pre-birth to the first 1,000 days in order to better support families—again, to keep children safe at home with their families.

The government also has a tender process underway for social impact investment aimed at improving outcomes for children and young people in care, after they leave care and to reduce the number of children in care. Last week at the Royal Adelaide Show, the Department for Child Protection joined Connecting Foster and Kinship Carers—the state's peak carer body—to host a stall promoting foster care at the Show. The stand generated a great deal of positive feedback throughout the 10 days and was supported by many of the foster care agencies.

This week, Foster and Kinship Care Week, the focus shifts to our carers. At the end of June, there were 1,536 children and young people living with foster carers, and 1,854 children with kinship carers. I am pleased to report that family-based care has risen from 83 per cent to 85.8 per cent over the last two years; however, there is still a long way to go to reach the national average of around 93 per cent. We have also delivered an election commitment to extend foster and kinship carer payments to 21 year olds, which commenced in January this year.

From opposition, carers would approach me and share their frustrations about the child protection system. I heard about the lack of information they received about children in their care, that calls were not being returned in a timely manner, and the limited circumstances in which they could make decisions in relation to children in their care.

Since forming government, I have been motivated to improve our carer experience. The Children and Young People (Safety) Act has been fully enacted for almost 12 months. Under this legislation, carers are to be involved in decision-making related to children and young people in their care. There is also a duty on the department to provide carers with certain information both before and during a placement, and the voice of the child is now strongly recognised. As a government, we also introduced the broadening of qualifications for front-line staff, filling long-held vacancies, freeing up more time for our staff to return these calls and have more interaction with children and their carers.

This week serves to raise awareness in our community of the contribution of our carers. Through the month of September, more than 20 lunches and dinners are planned across the state to say thank you; however, throughout the year as a government we will continue to be supportive and respectful of our carers, who do an incredible job.

With the wonderful help of our foster care agency partners, my goal of a net increase of 50 new foster carers was achieved last financial year but there are always more needed. To anyone interested in fostering, I would encourage you to call 1300TOFOSTER or to take the quiz on my department's new foster care website fostercare.sa.gov.au

Last week, I announced that the government will consult on the details of a policy on the practice of open adoption as a genuine permanency option for children and young people in care. Although the Adoption Act already provides for adoption from care in South Australia, the provisions have not been used for the last five years. Some of you may have heard adoptee Emmah Money, who was on the ABC last Friday morning talking about her experience, and I will quote:

I’ve gone on to do amazing things myself y’know I’ve published a book, I’ve got two children, I’ve travelled the world. I’ve done a lot of amazing things and it’s because of being adopted and having my parents have so much love for me. And I always say I feel like I was the chosen one.

Emmah also goes on to say that having the option to be adopted could be a really positive thing for so many kids. It is irrefutable that the evidence shows that for children and young people who cannot safely live at home, family-based care is the most desirable option for the vast majority of these children. Open adoption will simply be another permanency option to be considered when it is in the best interests of the child. There are many heartwarming stories.

At the Royal Adelaide Show last week, I had a touching conversation with a lady who was there with her daughter and her foster son, whom she had had in her care for seven years. I asked if she had heard the new announcement. When I asked if she had heard that adoption was now going to be available, she could not even speak. Her eyes welled up with tears. She was so overcome with emotion at the thought that this little boy, whom she already considered to be her family, could actually become her family.

It really made very clear to me just how emotional this is and how many foster carers are out there who have dreamed of this moment of being able to adopt. I spoke to a foster carer in Whyalla a few months ago, floating the idea of how she would feel about adoption. She has five children in foster care. She said, 'If you offered me $1 million on one hand or the ability to adopt my foster children, I would take the adoption any day of the week.'

There are a lot of heartwarming, wonderful stories of foster carers helping out throughout the regions and in the city areas. There are sisters who have taken on siblings so the children can stay together and Port Pirie grandparents who have been carers for over 22 years and supported over 100 children. I extend my sincerest gratitude and thanks to each and every carer who has chosen to care for these children and young people who could not safely remain at home. The kindness, love and support you give them allows them to embark on the path of healing in a safe and stable environment.

I am committed to reform. I will continue to meet with stakeholders, service providers, community groups, carers, children and young people and the non-government organisations and listen to suggestions on how to improve our child protection system. I thank the member for Badcoe, and I commend the motion to the house.

Mrs POWER (Elder) (12:46): I rise today in support of this motion. It is clear that all sides of politics agree on the enormous importance of protecting children and young people and supporting families to be the best that they can be. Integral to that are those individuals, organisations and communities who come together to create safe environments for children, including foster carers, guardians and kinship carers. Foster and Kinship Care Week acknowledges and thanks them for everything they do for children who need them, and Child Protection Week promotes the messages that kids do well when parents are supported and, to raise thriving kids, parents need support to navigate life's often difficult waters.

Extensive research has shown that the need for support among South Australian families with child protection concerns is far more complex than previously understood. Included in this is domestic and family violence, which is frequently present for many of the children notified to family services. As the Assistant Minister for Domestic and Family Violence Prevention, my priority and that of our government is supporting the safety of all South Australians. Addressing domestic and family violence and reducing its prevalence not only creates more respectful relationships and safer home environments but helps to reduce intergenerational trauma and create environments where kids can thrive.

As a government, we have been working on delivering $11.9 million in a suite of initiatives to address and respond to domestic and family violence. We also have a focus on early intervention and prevention across the board to support families. Our Minister for Human Services in the other place, the Minister for Child Protection, the Department of Human Services and the Department for Child Protection have together been developing a strategy to consolidate efforts to keep children safe from neglect and abuse.

As part of this, the state government is working in partnership with non-government organisations, front-line workers, service users, Aboriginal community members and other government departments to design a more coherent, connected system. As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child, and this is true in all respects no matter the circumstances. All families face challenges; all parents face challenges. Unfortunately, many families face numerous and complex issues such as domestic and family violence as well as homelessness, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse and other factors that challenge parenting capacity.

This government strategy will be about pulling together expertise from all the relevant areas to create coordinated service pathways that lead to real improvement in life outcomes for children and their families. We must have a system where we can work together to address issues before we reach crisis points. By using trauma-informed practices, staff will be equipped to work with families in a healing-focused manner. We know, as one of the key things of Child Protection Week reminds us, that when parents are supported kids do well.

As a local member, I am absolutely committed to and passionate about creating a whole community that thrives, one that feels supported and knows where to go for advice. Of course, this includes the family and parenting community. I am really pleased that I am soon going to be holding my first Bubs and Tots Community Event in my electorate of Elder for this very reason. Creating capable communities is one of my key priorities as the local member, and I look forward to providing the opportunity for mums, dads, grandparents, carers and all of us who are involved in children's lives to come together, to feel a part of the community, to meet and connect with other local parents who might be grappling with similar challenges, and of course to enjoy the joys of parenting. It is a time for them to come together and access some advice from parenting experts and from their local neighbours.

It is free and all are welcome. There will be stalls by The Sleep Doctor, Playgroup SA, CHILD SA, Bamboo Baby Bum, The Little Oak Tree, Head2toe First Aid, Kindergym, Mitcham Library and much more. We have an incredible guest speaker who is going to talk about the three things that every child needs to be resilient and happy, which is so important. We recognise the importance of resilience and raising resilient children in today's modern society more than ever before. Of course, this community event is also about celebrating and welcoming some of our youngest members to our local community: the babies, the bubs and the tots. I look forward to meeting them all.

I support the member for Badcoe's motion, and I would particularly like to recognise the front-line workers, the individuals and the organisations that are doing amazing invaluable work in child protection across our state, often in very challenging circumstances, as the member for Badcoe mentioned. I would also like to acknowledge all the foster and kinship carers making enormous contributions to the lives of children and young people and the Minister for Child Protection's absolute commitment to supporting foster and kinship carers and ensuring that those who are under the care of the state are as safe as possible. Indeed, we can all play a role in supporting families so that children thrive, and this will remain a priority for our government. I commend the motion to the house.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (12:52): I would like to make a small contribution to this debate. I thank the member for Badcoe for bringing this matter to the attention of the house and also acknowledge the contributions made by other members on this important issue. In supporting every part of this motion, there is a small part of it that I would like to highlight, and that is the contribution made by grandparents in raising grandchildren.

An increasing number of grandparents in our community now have the responsibility—in a lot of cases, full-time responsibility—for caring for grandchildren because their own child cannot care for their children. A whole range of issues are raised by grandparents raising grandchildren. First of all, I would like to acknowledge the selfless act of these grandparents in actually doing this. It is a huge responsibility.

For those of us who have been parents, raising your own children is a challenging task at times, but raising grandchildren can be quite challenging as well because you are at a different stage of your life and there is also a whole range of other pressures on you. Having said that, the grandparents I have met who do raise their grandchildren would not have it any other way. They love their grandchildren dearly and want to make sure that their grandchildren get the best possible opportunity to thrive.

The issue I want to raise, in addition to the obvious financial cost of grandparents raising grandchildren at a time when perhaps they have less income because they may be retired, is the issue of opportunities in life. Often, we plan our life ahead. We plan the lives of our children—to settle down, get partners, have their own families, etc.—and then that is the time when we can retire from paid work and it is a time for us to travel and do a whole range of other things. In some cases, that whole life plan comes to a standstill because your grandchildren need your care.

I think that sometimes we underestimate the impact that that sort of new caring and late life caring for others has on grandparents. As a society, we need to make sure that we make it as easy as possible for those grandparents who have to look after their grandchildren, that we do not put any unnecessary bureaucracy in front of them and that we also provide financial support.

In 99.9 per cent of cases, a child being looked after by a grandparent is much better than the state looking after a child because of the importance of understanding the child's culture. I do not mean culture in a multicultural sense but where the child has come from. They also gain and learn a lot from grandparents in that period of time. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the grandparents who do this marvellous work in our community.

Ms LUETHEN (King) (12:55): I rise to speak in support of this motion. I thank the Minister for Child Protection and the member for Elder. I thank the member for Badcoe for raising this motion and the member for Light for his remarks.

In 2019, National Child Protection Week's focus was on introducing a child development communication frame to promote the messages that kids do well when parents are supported, that to raise thriving children Australia's parents need better support, and that children's brains are built over time. The early years provide the foundation for future learning. We need to support parents to lay the strongest possible foundations.

Recently, our hardworking and dedicated Minister for Child Protection opened the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Q&A Forum in Adelaide, and our minister emphasised our government's commitment to supporting parents and carers. I can tell that there is much more to do because today carers still approach me and share their frustrations with the child protection system and department. I am still hearing about the limited circumstances in which carers can make decisions in relation to a child in their care. We are committed to improving our carer experience.

I have personally advocated for and continue to advocate for carers to have the support they need to achieve the best life outcomes for children they are caring for. The minister's staff have been great in helping me learn how to help and in seeking support for carers. Recently, a carer approached me about the lack of therapeutic support for children who had experienced trauma and this must improve. We must help these children who have experienced trauma recover so that they have the opportunity to live their best life possible. They deserve the right to reach their full potential. As a government, we are so grateful for our carers who do an incredible job and make a difference every day to a South Australian child's life.

Today, I say thank you to Backpacks 4 SA Kids. Since 2013, they have supported just over 30,000 children with their four programs, including Backpacks, Christmas presents, Anchor Packs and Home Starter Packs. These backpacks have been given to 30,000 kids in South Australia who often have nothing. They are often removed from unsafe homes or they are homeless. I thank everyone who works for, volunteers for and donates to Backpacks 4 SA Kids.

People living in King and across the state have told me they care about child protection. They have told me they want tougher penalties. We must invest in primary prevention to stop children being hurt and to stop the cycle of abuse in our community. One of the key reasons I became involved in politics was to become a voice for those vulnerable children. I have said many times before that I would take every opportunity in this place to talk about child sexual abuse because it is so prevalent and so that it becomes a topic that we openly talk about, just as we talk about DV today.

We must talk about how to prevent and stop child sexual abuse because these children are being silenced and they will suffer lifelong adverse health, relationship and social outcomes. It is estimated that one in five children in Australia will be sexually abused, and these are the children where the abuse is being substantiated. Child sexual abuse does not discriminate. It knows no socio-economic or cultural barriers. Ninety-five per cent of children sexually abused are abused by someone they know and trust. Only 3 per cent of victims will disclose and only 2 per cent of perpetrators will be convicted.

Parents do not like to think about, contemplate or talk about child sexual abuse, and even the language shows how uncomfortable we are with this topic. Often it is child rape, but we call it child abuse. One in five is unacceptable. Child abuse is not like a child falling over or scraping their knee. When that happens there is no-one saying, 'Don't tell anyone. This is our secret. No-one will believe you. Don't tell anyone or I will hurt your mum, sister, brother or pet. If you tell, this will destroy our family.' Last week, I was told that a five year old had just disclosed that her dad had told her that 'stop' is a naughty word and she is not allowed to say 'stop'. I seek to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.

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