Page 1737 - Week 06 - Thursday, 3 June 2021
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also include not having a safe place to return to when or if things go wrong. Extending care services to age 21, including allowing care leavers to re-engage with the system, better replicates the natural process of becoming independent within a supportive family setting.
Another factor known to contribute to poor life outcomes for care leavers is poor educational attainment prior to exiting care and protection. The opposite is also true. Educational achievement and positive educational experiences whilst in care are protective factors that enhance life outcomes.
Unfortunately, although there are clearly exceptions, in general, children and young people in out of home care are less likely to attend school or be engaged with learning. Those who do attend are less likely to continue their education beyond the minimum school-leaver age, and they are more likely to leave school with poorer levels of academic achievement. In particular, figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reveal lower levels of both numeracy and literacy among students in care. This gap widens as students proceed from primary school to high school.
Data from the ACT indicate that some of these general trends occur here as well. For example, the 2019 evaluation of the government’s out of home care strategy completed by KPMG found that, in the final year of the review, 20 per cent of kids in care did not meet the minimum standard for reading, and 13 per cent did not meet the minimum standard for numeracy. Both of these figures are three times greater for kids in the care and protection system than for their peers.
Research also reveals that poor educational attainment is more pronounced among young people in residential care placements than those in either foster or kinship care. Anecdotal evidence from youth workers in the ACT fully supports this finding. Those who have spoken with me have shared that many young people in residential care homes are disengaged from learning even when they attend school. School attendance is often very poor for others, and youth workers report that many older youth have entirely stopped attending.
Youth workers have shared with me two specific concerns: first, that so many kids in residential care are disengaged from, or struggling with, learning; second, and maybe more important, that they lack the confidence and capacity to help these kids re-engage or learn better. In short, they want to help. They know that it is an important part of their role as residential care workers, but they do not know what works best, what does not, or how exactly to go about it.
This is a valid concern, and one that needs to be taken very seriously. Youth workers are right that their role is an important one. Research out of Queensland, for example, found that factors contributing to poor educational outcomes for kids in residential care specifically include inadequate support and encouragement from carers, low academic expectations by carers and others, a lack of basic material support for education in a residential care setting, and inadequate training of residential care staff.
Academic literature repeatedly identifies the involvement of carers, including residential care staff, as a protective factor when it comes to the educational
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