Page 422 - Week 01 - Thursday, 16 February 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
announcing further funding of $1.7 million over 4 years in the 2011-12 budget to provide a community kinship care program.
The preference is always to keep children safely at home with their parents. When this is not possible and children have been traumatised by the abuse and neglect they have experienced, the Directorate will explore the most suitable and least traumatic option for their care, often a kinship placement. This can be a challenging time for the carers and the children and the Directorate continues to explore how to support carers further as they care for their family members in a placement.
(2) Aged kinship carers of children and young people are able to access the Kinship Care Mediation and Counselling Service delivered by Relationships Australia which provides free individual, family group counselling and mediation services to kinship carers.
They are also encouraged to seek support from the Kinship Carers Advocacy and Support Service which is funded to provide information and support in addition to a reference group developing resources to support kinship carers. In particular, aged kinship carers have access to the Grandparents Support Program, funded to provide support to grandparents caring for their grandchildren, including those with formal care arrangements, informal orders and those through the Family Court of Australia.
Aged kinship carers may access needs-based training and information sessions conducted by the Learning and Community Education Unit within the Community Services Directorate and are able to seek support from the Carer Liaison Officer and the Aboriginal Kinship Liaison Officer located within the Directorate.
The Foster Carers and Kinship Carers Guide is provided to advise all kinship carers of relevant information. The Guide is currently being evaluated to ensure its relevance for all kinship carers.
The ‘Carer Connection’ Newsletter provides relevant and up to date information on a range of issues and is distributed to all carers on a regular basis.
(3) Professionals within the Community Services Directorate demonstrate an understanding of the psychology of aged kinship carers caring for children and young people. In addition, training and information sessions conducted by Learning and Community Education for kinship carers are derived from an understanding of human development in terms of meeting the needs of young people whilst acknowledging the particular needs of their older carers.
(4) The recent information and training sessions for kinship carers were promoted to carers who had a recent placement of a child or young person with them, by letter and followed up with a phone call from either the Carer Liaison Officer or the Aboriginal Kinship Liaison Officer.
(5) Kinship care is about caring arrangements within a family unit and often has privacy issues for that family arising from the complexity of the situation. This often leads to carers simply preferring to get on with family life, rather than considering the possibility of attending training and information sessions. There are also the practical demands of the carers’ lives and their lack of available time, given that that they have added to the size of their families in caring for a child or young person.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video