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Foster care

• About foster and kinship care
  • What is foster care?
  • What is kinship care?
  • Who needs care?
  • Provisionally approved carers
  • Specialist foster care
  • Non family-based care
• Becoming a carer
  • Expression of interest
    • Register your interest
  • Questions to consider
  • Rewards and challenges
  • Steps to becoming a carer
• Blue cards for carers
  • Blue cards for existing carers and their adult household members
• Carer training
  • Foster carer training
    • Foreword
    • Procedures and guidelines
    • Frequently asked questions
    • Orientation
    • Learning outcomes
    • Pre-service training
    • Learning journal
    • Standard training
    • Advanced training
    • Recognition of prior learning
    • Acknowledgments
    • Forms and templates
  • Kinship carer training
• Children and young people
  • Transitioning from care
  • Info kit for children and young people in care
    • Family group meeting (FGM)
    • Case plan
    • Education support plan (ESP)
    • Child health passport (CHP)
    • Transition from care (TFC)
    • Matters of concern (MOC)
    • Complaints
  • Children and young people's participation strategy
• Support for carers
  • Carer handbook
  • Federal Government allowances and benefits
  • Foster and kinship care support line
  • Foster and Kinship Carer Card
    • Business Discount Directory
      • Tips on using the card
      • Nominate a business
    • Information for businesses
      • Business proposal application form
      • Terms and conditions
    • Frequently asked questions
  • Financial support
  • Support care
  • Support groups
• Rights and responsibilities
  • Standards of care
  • Statement of commitment
  • Charter of rights for a child in care
  • United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Case planning for a child in care
  • Child health passport
  • Children and young people with disabilities
  • Education support plans
  • Family contact and reunification
  • Long-term guardianship
  • Placement Agreements
  • Transition from care
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
  • Child placement principle
  • Recognised Entities
• Regulation of care
  • Screening and assessment
  • Matters of concern
  • Community Visitors
• Contacts
  • Community foster care agencies
  • Indigenous foster care agencies
  • Peak bodies and advocacy groups
  • Foster and Kinship Carer Card contacts
• Library

Who needs care?

Children and young people who need care have their own special qualities and needs. It is likely that they will have been under a lot of stress at home.

They may have experienced harm or are at risk of harm. Sometimes the past experiences of children and young people contribute to emotional or behavioural difficulties.

Children and young people who are placed in foster or kinship care do not always fully understand why they have had to leave home and they are often confused. They may also express their feelings about separation and loss in ways that seem hard to understand.

Foster and kinship carers are also needed to care for sibling groups, teenagers, babies as well as children and young people living in rural and remote Queensland.

Children coming into foster or kinship care are of different ages, cultural and religious backgrounds. They may need to be placed with their brothers and sisters, or have special care needs. Given the individual needs of these children and young people, approved foster and kinship carers with special skills are required to care for them.

More Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander foster carers, as well as carers from other ethnic backgrounds, are needed throughout Queensland. More than 24 per cent of children and young people in care are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders. The Department of Child Safety is committed to providing care in a way that respects their culture and allows them to maintain their cultural identity.

My foster carer welcomed me into her home three years ago. She has been there for me through all of my troubles and all of my achievements. She has encouraged me to be the best I can be, and she has been proud of me just as much in the times when I didn't quite get to be where I wanted.

Through all our fights, tears and tantrums she kept on loving me. When she had her own personal struggles to surmount she was still a cheerful and involved supporter. I am an evolved, happy, productive adult partly because she chose to give a part of herself to help bring me to where I am today.

Even now, she is still a big part of my life. When I need someone to talk to she is just a phone call away. I know I belong somewhere because of her.

Hayley

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Last updated

3 August 2007