Agenda for Change: Ensuring a safe and supportive out-of-home care system for children and young people in New South Wales
Mar 2023
Written by Sue Buratti
A system in crisis: A call for transformation
The out-of-home care system in New South Wales (NSW) should be a safe haven for children, young people and families. It is a system in crisis. Children, young people and families are not receiving the safety and support they desperately need to heal, recover and thrive. Their experiences in out-of-home care have a lifelong impact that echoes not only through their lives but also those of future generations.
It is time for the new NSW Government to make a change. The out-of-home care system needs to become a place of hope, healing and opportunity for children and young people unable to live with their birth families. We must build a safe system that is held to high-quality standards.
By implementing the following six fundamental changes, the system can be transformed into the best possible environment for our most vulnerable children and young people.
Agenda for Change
CETC and Australian Childhood Foundation are calling on the New South Wales Government to support the following six critical actions:
Commit to generational change in the out-of-home care system
- Increase funding or accessible outreach and specialist trauma services for children and
carers through the OurSPACE Program run by Australian Childhood Foundation. - Ensure kinship and foster carers can access intensive and timely child-centred, restorative,
therapeutic and trauma-informed training and support regardless of geography, culture,
and resources. - Recognise lived experience and cultural wisdom as a critical resource and qualifier to
engaging a First Nations workforce to support Aboriginal children and carers.
- Implement standardised, accredited trauma-informed training for case workers, residential
care workers, and others in the out-of-home care system to alleviate confusion and provide
consistency for children and young people who engage with multiple professionals with
varied approaches. - Plan for an ongoing trauma-informed and continuous improvement approach by investing in
in-house expert consultation to better use evidence-based knowledge in therapeutic care. - Implement standardised carer assessments overseen by an independent body to ensure
consistency, fairness and accountability.
- Increase transparency of the scope of the problem, the number of children entering alternative
care arrangements (including those transitional arrangements under other names), their ages
and needs, and the quality of care received. - Implement a coordinated and sustained program to reduce and eliminate the need for children
and young people to be placed in motels and other alternative care arrangements.
- Ensure that any incidents of harm are addressed swiftly, effectively and transparently by an
independent provider to ensure that children are not harmed whilst in the care system. - Fund an independent review of the existing child abuse and critical incident reporting
framework to assess its capacity to respond to the increasing complexity and risk of children
and young people entering and already in the system.
- Ensure that any incidents of harm are addressed swiftly, effectively and transparently by an
independent provider to ensure that children are not harmed in the care system. - Fund an independent review of the existing child abuse and critical incident reporting
framework to assess its capacity to respond the increasing complexity and risk of children
and young people entering and already in the system.
