On 15 September, four hundred and forty pairs of children’s shoes lined the lawns of Parliament House, each pair representing approximately 100 of the more than 44,000 children and young people living in out-of-home care across Australia.

Families Australia, the National Foster Care Sustainability Group and members of the Federal Parliamentary Friends of Foster Carers and Children in Foster Care came together to highlight the growing pressure on Australia’s foster and kinship care system and call for practical national reforms.

The number of new and active foster carers has declined by 21 per cent since 2017, increasing pressure on a system already supporting children with complex needs. The decline has increased the urgency of growing and sustaining Australia’s community of foster and kinship carers, with concerns that more children who cannot safely live at home could be left without access to stable, family-based care.

As Families Australia Chief Executive Officer Suzanne Greenwood put it:

“This is a crisis hiding in plain sight. Thousands of children who have experienced abuse, neglect or family violence are relying on a family-based care system that is under serious and growing pressure.”

The reality for carers

Foster carer Kelly Jebb said the challenges carers face extend well beyond providing a safe and stable home.

“People think fostering is just love and a spare bedroom. It’s so much more than that. It’s chasing specialists, it’s organising appointments, juggling case workers, schools, doctors and therapists,” Kelly said.

She said carers could also face significant challenges when children move between jurisdictions.

“If a child moves, their support can basically evaporate. Their therapy, their medical file, their routine, it doesn’t travel with them. So, you start again.”

National Foster Care Sustainability Group Chair Dr Lisa J. Griffiths said Kelly’s experience was echoed by carers across Australia.

“What Kelly describes – the endless admin, the postcode lottery, the exhaustion of holding a broken system together with good intentions – is what we hear from carers everywhere,” Dr Griffiths said.

Practical national reforms

Families Australia and the National Foster Care Sustainability Group are calling for practical reforms including a portable Passport to Care, better access to health and therapeutic services, reduced financial pressure on carers and fairer workplace leave arrangements.

“If we want more Australians to open their homes to children who need safety, stability and healing, we have to remove the barriers that make caring harder than it needs to be.”

Ms Greenwood said the proposed reforms were practical and achievable.

“They would ease pressure on carers, help recruit and retain more families, reduce the risk of children being pushed into higher-cost residential care, and give children in care a better chance to be healthy, well and thriving.”

The Parliament House action highlighted the scale of the challenge facing Australia’s foster and kinship care system and the need for coordinated national action to support carers and children.

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