Page 2773 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 1993
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This situation has continued for the past 23 months, at heaven knows what annual expense to Barnardo's, with the Government's contribution in that period rising by only $6 to $106 per week. However, faced with a 1993-94 subsidy of $70,000 - it is significant that this money is coming from New South Wales, not ACT, sources - Barnardo's have said, "Enough; we can no longer fund the project". That is the background. Unless the government subsidy is increased, the 12 teenagers currently in the RAFT program ultimately will be uprooted and moved into residential care, even if in the short term these adolescents and their foster families do stay together. I understand that this decision will be taken by Barnardo's as from 1 October this year.
What this might do to already fragile and vulnerable young people only just beginning to develop relationships with foster families is anyone's guess. And why? According to the Minister, the original RAFT program funding of $240 was for young people with "special needs and problems". The 1991 review decided that such payments for young people with special needs should be attached to the young person rather than to the program itself. Effectively, this creates two types of young people - those with special needs and those without them. Those without them have the government subsidy for care under the RAFT program reduced, and that process has the advantage that it saves the Government money. It also has the disadvantage that it is transparently unfair. The very fact that these young people find themselves in a situation that seeks placement in foster or residential care would indicate that they all have special needs and problems. Why do you attempt to differentiate? If some of these young people do have "special needs and problems" over and above those shared with their unfortunate peers, they surely should attract extra resources. They should not have to borrow resources from others in foster or residential care.
Further, and apart from the basic unfairness, the payment rate is unrealistic. Has any member of this Assembly attempted to feed, let alone keep, a growing teenager on $106 per week? How then is a foster carer expected to do so? This rhetorical question makes even less sense when one examines the scope of the expenses to be met by the standard foster care subsidy of $106 per week: Food and shelter, heating, electricity, gas, general clothing and footwear, school clothing and footwear other than items specified in the payment of contingency items, schoolbooks and stationery, school excursions other than those specified in the payment of contingency items, pocket-money, leisure and hobby activities, non-school social and sporting activities, toys and presents, outings and entertainment, haircuts, travel costs other than those specified in the payment of contingency items, general expenses relating to personal hygiene items, and basic general medical and dental treatment and pharmaceutical expenses. All this has to be paid from $106 per week - and for a teenager.
In the unlikely event that all those who set these subsidies have no children, let alone teenage children, there are some respectable references we can check as to how much it may cost to keep a teenager. I refer specifically to an Australian Institute of Family Studies publication of May 1993 and, at page 39, a table entitled "Expenditure Survey Approach Based on Lee 1989". This is adjusted to the average weekly earnings figure for the September quarter of 1992, so it is reasonably up to date. This indicates that the cost of keeping a child of 11 to 13 years of age - I would suggest an absolutely junior teenager; never mind a strapping 17-year-old with hollow legs - - -
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