By Katrina RoeMonday 10 Mar 2014Hope MorningsParentingReading Time: 2 minutes
The state’s 12,000 foster kids say all they really want is a Mum and a Dad.
In NSW alone there 18,000 children in out-of-home care. Of these 12,000 have been removed by a court order, which means it’s no longer safe for them to stay at home. Of those 12,000 children, only 78 were adopted in NSW last year. But that looks set to change.
The Minister for Family and Community Services in NSW, Pru Goward wants to see adoption prioritised over foster care. “Because despite all the best efforts of our wonderful foster carers, we don’t have great results from foster care,” the Minister explains, revealing she recently met a child who had been through 39 foster care placements.
Audio – Hear the Minister, Pru Goward talk about proposed changes to adoption and fostering laws
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“We see lots of children in foster care who thrive, but ultimately they are much more likely to end up in a juvenile justice facility, they’re much more likely to be homeless, they’re much less likely to have finished Year 12, they’re much more likely to be illiterate and 30% of girls leaving foster care are pregnant by the time they’re 19.” In contrast, children who are adopted, ‘by and large have outcomes just like everybody else.’
Foster children often come into care already traumatised by both their experiences and their removal. “These children change families. They have to make new friends, get used to new rules in a house, new relatives, new neighbours, new schools. And then when things go wrong, because Community Services as a government agency didn’t support them very well, we often didn’t find out that there was a crisis until the child got out the window.”
Minister Goward says it’s the first time that child protection reforms have been driven by those who have been through the system.
“They said what they really wanted was a Mum and a Dad; that if they had to be removed from their parents and many of them strongly supported that because they could remember how terrible life was at home... So many of them said, “I wanted to be in a home where nobody was going to knock on the door and say, ‘You have to go.’”
“What does that do to a child’s confidence in their ability to be loved and cared for when you get traded in like a dog? Adoption and guardianship means that doesn’t happen.”