Families Minister Kate Washington was questioned about reforms to NSW’s foster care system. Photo: NSW Legislative Assembly.
The NSW Government has announced it will “ban” the practice of unqualified staff looking after foster care children in hotels, motels and caravan parks.
Families Minister Kate Washington has conceded however, that children may still be placed in hotels, under the guidance of “accredited” providers.
Across the state, almost 15,000 children live in temporary out of home care. Most have been removed from their birth parents by the government due to repeated abuse or neglect and placed with foster carers.
A chronic shortage of carers means that government is sometimes forced to keep children in hotels, motels and caravan parks, which it calls alternative care arrangements (ACAs). These children are checked into rooms, where they could stay for weeks or months while being looked after by a roster of shift workers, who may or may not be properly trained in foster care.
In 2023, Region broke the story that the child protection department had kept a two-year-old foster care baby and their four-year-old sibling in hotel-type accommodation for 163 days.
“Since I became minister, I’ve made it very clear that vulnerable children do not belong in hotels, motels or caravan parks with shift workers instead of foster carers,” Ms Washington said in a statement on Tuesday (3 September).
“We acted early, and we’re already seeing meaningful results, with the number of children in unaccredited alternative care arrangements falling by 72 per cent in just eight months.”
In a recent report by the Advocate for Children and Young People, one young person compared their experience living in an ACA to that of a “dog being moved from cage to cage.”
Minister Washington announced that her government would ban the use of ACAs, but she was probed by former families minister Natasha Mclaren-Jones at a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday on what this meant.
“You’ve announced today that ACAs will be banned, but that is for unaccredited carers. But they will still operate with accredited carers, is that correct?” Ms McLaren-Jones asked.
“In amongst the high cost emergency arrangements … yes there will be accredited providers continuing to provide placements for children; we will be seeking to reduce those numbers as well,” Ms Washington replied.
The minister said she wanted to put a stop to foster care children living in motels. Photo: rawpixel.com.
Minister Washington also announced that the NSW Government would take a more active role in the provision of child protection services and be less reliant on outsourcing functions to the private sector. She pledged the government would re-enter the market as a foster care provider and expand the recruitment of departmental emergency foster carers to include longer term carers, introduce government-run intensive and professional foster care models and deliver government-run residential care [group homes] for children where non-government providers are unable to offer stable placements.
These changes were welcomed by Greens MP and spokesperson for youth justice Sue Higginson.
“For too long, the child protection system has split families, crushed foster carers, and funnelled untold public money to for-profit companies while actively harming children. The department and previous governments have been complicit,” she said.
“Today’s announcement is a brave first step, but it is just the first step. The government must invest in early and genuine family support, and stable, permanent and culturally appropriate out-of-home care. They must clear out the entire out-of-home care system of profiteers who have commodified the harm of young people.”
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