Page 2781 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 1993
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It is interesting to consider what families who have been in that program for that length of time have seen happen to their foster care payments. They are now being asked to accept a much lower level of payment, around $100 per week per placement, than they were receiving five years ago, and I imagine that many parents in that program would question the level of that assistance.
Above and beyond financial assistance, Barnardo's has provided support, counselling and other forms of assistance necessary for these families. Financial support, of course, makes the emotional and physical support possible. Barnardo's has continued to fund the program, believing in the ability of the participants to achieve the best outcomes for the adolescents involved. However, that is no longer financially possible, and it appears at this time that calls for a more realistic level of funding for Barnardo's have not been heard. Barnardo's has been informed that parents participating in the program can now transfer to the Family Services Branch of the Housing and Community Services Bureau at the higher level of support for their current placement and then have the opportunity to participate again in foster care placements under the department's supervision at the lower rate. Again, I question, from the family's point of view, how they would feel about such a situation.
What RAFT and Barnardo's have achieved in the area of support of teenagers with high emotional needs is a high-quality program with heartening success stories. I had the pleasure of interviewing several foster carers in my office some weeks ago and I heard the very heartening way in which they talked about their foster care placements. I do not seek to lessen the contribution of other families who foster other teenagers under other programs, as all of these programs are important and meet the different needs of the various young people who have been supported and accommodated by the families which take part in each program. It is important to recognise that parents and teenagers should not be shuffled from one organisation to another. This notion places at risk the very components that are important in such programs - stability and reliability.
Once the current group of teenagers have grown up and left their placements and foster families, it is also important that a program which has shown itself to be successful is retained. Programs in many areas of community services are moving towards being home and community based as opposed to institutionally based services. If we choose not to continue to support the Barnardo's RAFT program, we remove one option for potentially keeping young people out of institutionalised care. We place them in homes with families who have demonstrably more to give them than what is defined in their duty statements. The carers involved in foster placements bring additional assets to the lives of the teenagers they care for. They provide their homes, their vehicles, their neighbourhood connections, their extended families and their life knowledge of experience with the intention of providing a stable and caring environment for teenagers in the program.
With the anticipated closing of the RAFT program, it is important to assess what we potentially lose as a community as a result. Firstly, we stand to lose experienced carers who may have been able to support more young people or to support other carers. I do not feel certain, as the Government obviously does, that carers would finish their current placements at the high level of reimbursement and then accept a lesser amount to continue to participate in additional foster care placements. These parents are currently being informed that their contribution is worth only a little more than $100 a week.
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