The lottery of systems: Ways forward for children in need - Kinship or Foster Care? Marija Joyce, General Manager Southern Services Lynne McCrae, Manager, Family Services

The context The new Victorian Child, Youth and Families Act (2005) legislation enshrines the practice of prioritising kinship care programs for children entering the child protection system in Victoria. In effect a kinship placement becomes the default placement for these children.

Oz Child is in a unique position in Victoria We run the largest single Home Based Care program in Victoria - placing approx. 180 children each night across five large local government areas in the south east region of Melbourne Since 1998, we have also managed an outsourced Kinship Care program. Currently, we are in Year 3 of a pilot program which is now the largest single kinship program for statutory clients in Victoria with the placement of children in approx. 70 families at any one time.

Our paper Will outline the legislative and policy environments which are having an impact of the delivery of home based care and kinship care. Using a case study of the same children we will discuss the inherent advantages, disadvantages and complexities facing the children, their families, carers and staff working with them depending on whether the placement is in kinship care or foster care.

Trends in Kinship Care 1908 children placed in kinship care on June Growth from 20% of OOHC placements to 35% in ten years Kinship placements exceeded those in HBC for the first time in 2007 Projections are such that by the year 2016 there will be three kinship placements for every foster care placement. It is of critical importance that the practice model for kinship care is set up to deal with this projected increase in a way which also ensures that the safety and interest of the child are best met.

Where does Kinship Care sit? Locating kinship care on the continuum between out of home care and family preservation has always presented challenges. The consistent view regardless of whether it is located more towards one or the other, is that kinship care is seen as ‘different’.

Principles of Kinship Care Wider family involvement should be encouraged Understanding the leadership, decision-making and ways of taking action in the family is critical to supporting the placement. Service systems procedures should be flexible to take account of these factors. Use the critical first few months to assist the family to anticipate and plan for challenges ahead. In every approved placement the benefits to the child in maintaining identity and relationships should outweigh any difficulties in family history or circumstance (Green Paper Kinship Care- Care by relatives and Friends: Policy and Service Design )

Family preservation end A focus on the maintenance of relationships within the extended family and continuity of family identity and culture may lead to a minimising of issues related to: –the quality of care provided, –age/capacity of the carer, –intergenerational transmission of dysfunction, –child development.

Out of home care end When kinship care is defined as sitting more towards the out of home care end of the continuum, this difference focuses more on the additional complexities of assessment and support required for the family system involvement with the court processes capacity to manage access when there is in fact much less capacity to control visits of parents who also remain “family”.

Same group of children Children who are placed with kin through Child Protection come to the notice of the Department for the same reasons as those who are placed in Home Based Care placements ie because their parents are unable to care for them through death, imprisonment, intellectual, physical or mental health disabilities and/or because they are not safe in their home environment for a range of reasons including abuse and neglect. They will have experienced similar levels of trauma and loss, with as much consequent social and emotional damage as children in Home Based Care.

A review of cases we classified as ‘complex’, included one or more of the following elements: carer reluctance or refusal to be assessed; limited protection for kinship carers from birth parents cultural or disability issues that require more time and effort to work through extreme access requirements multi generational issues such as the occurrence of sexual abuse. Kinship carer’s capacity to understand the impact of the child’s history may be clouded by the current relationship they have with the children’s natural parents Complex families

A matter of chance It is largely a matter of chance whether a child in need of out of home care placement ends up in a HBC or Kinship placement – ie whether or not a relative can be located at the time of admission into care. But for the child the implications of this decision can have a significant impact on all aspects of the services provided to support the placement and to appropriately meet that child’s needs and future development.

Case study Two children, aged seven and nine years, who were removed from the care of their mother and her de facto partner on the grounds of substantiated drug abuse, domestic violence and neglect. Neither child at the time was attending school and both showed significant behavioural evidence of cumulative harm as a consequence of their parents’ chaotic and violent lifestyle with a subsequent failure to prioritize their children’s interest over their own. When Child Protection received the initial notification they conducted an investigation which established that the children were no longer safe in their home. They were therefore removed and an attempt was made to find a relative who could take on their immediate care needs.

Scenario 1 No suitable relative located Allocated Child Protection case worker makes a referral for an emergency HBC to Oz Child’s HBC program. At referral DHS was still in the process of developing and finalising a further Assessment and Case Plan and there was still significant statutory involvement of the parties through the court system. HBC was requested to take on case contracting. The case was funded at an Intensive level of client allocation, in recognition of the high needs of the children and the likely difficulties in maintaining the placement due to their behavioural difficulties.

Scenario 1 continued The Intake worker was able to identify a suitable match from among the available carers in the program. The carers had been accredited with Oz Child for over five years. To gain this accreditation, they had had to –have a current Working with Children Check and police check –undergo a thorough family assessment, –had their home checked for its suitability and had completed both the basic level of training for carers (including the competency based Shared Stories Shared Lives training) They had also done specialist training in the effects of trauma and abuse on children through the therapeutic foster carer advanced training.

Scenario 2 Maternal grandmother agreed and was keen to take on the full-time care of the children She was estranged from her daughter so had not seen much of the grandchildren in recent years and they were not very familiar with her either. The grandmother was in her late sixties, suffered from a number of chronic health problems and was on a pension – characteristics she shares in common with the majority of kinship carers The two children had been living with their grandmother for six months when referred to the Oz Child Kinship Care program The referral had been prompted by the need to have a comprehensive psycho- social assessment completed in order to support Child Protection’s application to the Court for a specific Care Order

Financial support HBC carer – enhanced payments because the case was classified as Intensive A specified amount of brokerage funding was available on an annual basis for the children’s particular needs – for example, specialised counselling. Kinship carer -reimbursed for their care at the general foster care rate for each child and no brokerage amount offered (Child Protection does at times fund specific supports (as negotiated on a case by case basis)

Quality of Care The recent legislation requires community agencies providing Out of Home and/or Family Services to meet specific Registration Standards. In the case of the HBC program, this includes compliance with specific standards relating to the care of children. The Kinship Care program comes under the scope of these same standards but is currently excluded from compliance requirements, as there is no agreement about how the standards relating to the care of children should be applied and what is the acceptable level of care for kinship placements. Children in HBC are required to have a LAC plan Children in the Kinship Care program are not required to have a LAC plan, so that there is no systematic way in which the children’s development is monitored across all the seven LAC domains.

Quality of Care continued. Kinship carers are subject to the same Quality of Care Guidelines as foster carers Foster carers are to be able to carefully consider whether they are prepared, after training and assessment, to take on the responsibilities entailed in caring for a child at the required standards Kinship carers don’t see themselves as foster carers Kinship carers often have the care of a child thrust upon them and see themselves as having ‘no choice’ in taking on a relative child. As most kinship carers report that the primary drive and motivation for taking on the care of their grandchild or relative is to ensure they are kept out of the out of home care system, mandating their inclusion under the scope of the Quality of Care guidelines creates further difficulties around maintaining the placement.

Case support HBC program, Case worker would have a case load of between eight and twelve children (depending on the complexity of children involved) Each child would be counted as a separate unit for funding purposes. Kinship Care program Funded for an average of three hours a week to support the placement of these two children (together) The unit cost is recognised by “family” ie the two children count as one unit. The program is funded on a caseload of 14 families per worker or an average of 21 children

Funding differences The different funding formulae applied to HBC and Kinship Care placements appears therefore, to be at the heart of the inequities experienced by children in each stream. Average unit cost for a ‘family’ in the current contract which is around 40% of that for the average HBC placement for a child. HBC placements are differentially funded based on whether they are General, Intensive or Complex, options not available for Kinship referrals. HBC supplementary funding of $1200 pa for Intensive and $11,000 pa for complex cases above general foster care flexipak funding Children in the Kinship Care program also do not have the same access to flexi packages which ensure additional support depending on need. Average brokerage funds per child is $77 pa.

Issues for kinship carers Feel they have little choice about taking on care of their relative regardless of family situation/life stage More likely to be financially disadvantaged so less able to meet additional expenses - concerns about impact on their financial status Receive less financial support beyond carer reimbursement Concerns by older carers about long term capacity to support the child – financially, physically Impact of managing relationships with the parent/other family members Social isolation – loss of old lifestyle

Questions to consider Our experience has shown that placing a child with their kin often leads to positive outcomes for the children. Equity of funding and support for the most vulnerable children – those in need of out of home care Equity of workload – are kinship workers expected to do more with less- –HBC case management requirements on Family Services funding –Untrained carers but falling under statutory quality of care guideline –Family work as well as carer support What standards of care – good enough vs high quality We need to be careful we do not allow the sense of a family relationship to limit the service model required to both support and monitor these placements.