Page 4755 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 10 November 2009
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relation to the child, it is hoped from kinship placements that they are more likely to feel secure, loved and have a sense of belonging. The inevitable trauma associated with removal is lessened to some degree, and shared care is a traditional parenting practice in some cultural groups where kinship care is normative in these cultures.
The issues surrounding this emerging area of concern are many and very complex. They include, but are not limited to, the fact that kinship carers are immediately recruited to care for a child, whereas non-relative carers are recruited, they are assessed and trained in advance and may not feel or be equipped physically, emotionally or financially to fill this role. That is quite an important distinction. For many who become kinship carers, it can be a very immediate situation, a change of situation. That lack of back-up and training can bring with it its own difficulties.
Kinship placements may be less effectively monitored than non-relative foster placements. Placements may be below the minimum standards of supervision, and out-of-home care workers may hold perceptions that kinship carers do not require as much attention or support. There is also the existing family conflict or conflict arising from a placement that may result in need for additional monitoring and support. This is particularly the case where you have a grandparent whose own child has got into some difficulty, whether that be some issue around substance abuse, a mental illness or some other matter.
In that case the grandparent takes on the care of the grandchildren, but of course still has the care or the issues to do with the care and the emotional support and so forth of their own child. Kinship carers also may, because of their ties to the child, resent agency intrusion as they are family and they may not willingly accept support from agencies.
While there are many issues to consider, perhaps the most pressing is the representation of kinship carers in the advocacy process to ensure their rights, needs and wants are heard and represented to those in decision-making roles. We know that kinship carers are more likely to have a lower socioeconomic status and to experience associated problems. Thus they may require more support than non-relative carers.
However, it is reported to the ACT Greens that kinship families may receive less training, fewer services and less support. Kinship carers also report that the financial strain they feel can be crippling in that they are required to use their superannuation in some cases to support their family and in many cases for those on pensions it is very, very difficult to make that pension stretch further.
The need for support services outside the role of the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services is evident as kinship carers report that they may be reluctant to ask for additional support for fear of being deemed unfit and risking termination of their placement of the children with them.
We note that the ACT government made an election commitment to provide funds to establish a grandparents and kinship carers support service. The Greens support the development of such a service and look forward to its implementation.
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