Foster care Queensland: hearing children’s voices

At Anglicare, we listen to and respect the voices of children and young people in the foster care system. We do this by adhering to government policies and processes, as outlined by the Commission. In Queensland, the Commission addresses child safety related issues, listens to compliments and complaints, and they respond to the voices of carers and young people

Like us, other foster care agencies and services providers are responsible for following and adhering to frameworks that prioritise the voice of the child.

If you’re a carer or professional in the Child Safety space, keep reading to find out more about how children’s voices should be heard in Queensland regarding matters to do with their care arrangement.

Legislative and policy framework

The Child Protection Act 1999 is the overarching governing framework for child protection in Queensland. All frameworks that listen to and respond to the voice of a child must adhere to the Act. The act states:

“The main principle for administering this Act is that the safety, wellbeing and best interests of a child, both through childhood and for the rest of the child’s life are paramount.”¹

Principles of child participation

The Principles for participation of children are delivered under 5E of the Child Protection Act. This section outlines how a child or person responsible for their care may exercise their power when making decisions related to the child in care. It also prioritises the importance of involving and listening to the child when making a decision about them. Carers should always respect the child’s choice and communicate with them in an age-appropriate way.

Charter of rights for a child in care

Children and young people who are in out of home care (in Queensland) are protected under a Charter of Rights. These rights are a part of the Child Protection Act 1999 and are based on human and child rights laws. You can view the full list of rights here.

Formal processes that support children’s voices

It’s important that organisations, such as us, implement a range of formal processes to protect and support the voices of children in Queensland’s care system.

Child Protection services and support agencies play an imperative role in developing and implementing these processes. This includes:

Case planning and placement agreements – where children, carers and support agencies participate in developing goals and plans for the young person. During case planning and placement agreements, children should be given opportunities to participate in decisions surrounding their care and lives.²

Decision making processes – again, in reference to Section 5E of the Child Protection Act:

decisions for a child can be made directly by them (depending on the legal arrangements in place or their age and ability to understand a decision);
if not, their parents, carer, non-family-based care or Child Safety staff can make a reasonable decision if the first condition cannot be met.

Decisions may surround their daily care and if there are issues likely to have significant long-term impacts on the child.³

The implementation of child-first frameworks – services and organisations that work with children in foster care are guided by frameworks that explicitly support opportunities for children to participate in making decisions that affect them. These frameworks are Government and non-government led. Examples include the above-mentioned Charter of rights for children and young people in care, and the Child and Youth Participation Framework by the Queensland Family and Child Commission. This framework aims to act in their best interests and affirm the rights of the child.⁴

Informal and day-to-day opportunities to be heard

Everyone involved in the care plan for a child in care has a role to play in ensuring that children’s voices are heard in formal and informal settings.

Foster care Queensland: carer responsibilities

Foster and kinship carers can listen and respond to the voices of children in their care by creating a safe and trusting environment where children can feel free to communicate honestly and have their views heard.

Carers can also actively listen to children by paying attention to their verbal and physical cues, empowering them to share their views and thoughts, and providing them with choices. Additionally, they can explain matters that affect them clearly, talk to them in private, and ensure that they’re doing their best to advocate on behalf of the child with other relevant stakeholders involved in their care.

Professionals involved in the care of children in Queensland’s care system

Whether you’re a respite carer, youth worker, Case Manager or anyone else responsible for hearing the voices of children in care, you can also create a safe and nurturing environment where children can feel safe to communicate freely.

As above, it’s important to take note of the verbal and physical cues of a child and empower them to share their views and thoughts openly and without penalty. Children should feel advocated for and respected when making choices about their lives. Agencies and organisations involved in the care of children should also provide children with opportunities to provide feedback and complaints.

Training and support for carers and professionals

Training and support for foster and kinship carers

If you’re a Queensland foster carer (or kinship carer), you’ll undergo preliminary training, including Getting Ready to Start Training and Starting Out Training with Your Agency. During your training, you’ll learn about your role as a carer, including adhering to legislative responsibilities. You’ll also learn about how to listen, engage with, and respect the voice and decisions of children in your care. As you progress through your foster care journey, you’ll also be provided with continuous learning opportunities to meet the needs of your foster children.⁵

Training and support for professionals

Professionals involved in the care of children in Queensland undergo ongoing mandatory training with their agency. This ensures that they meet the legislative requirements of responding to the needs of children in Queensland’s care system. Different agencies have their own training frameworks, but all must meet the requirements within Government legislation.

At Anglicare, our staff participate in regular training. We follow the below frameworks:

Improving Lives Practice Framework – a framework centred around relationships based, strength based, trauma informed and recovery-oriented practice. It supports staff to respond to individuals and communities to heal and recover from trauma while promoting positive self-identities, a sense of empowerment, and purpose in the context of supportive and nurturing relationships. Improving Lives has four principles, one of which being that it’s child-focused, person centred and family-oriented.

Therapeutic Crisis Intervention – a program for professionals who work with children and families to prevent, de-escalate and manage crisis situations. This program implements a child-first approach and acts in the best interests of children.⁶

Best Practice Foster Care – a framework and modules developed exclusively for Anglicare Southern Queensland to support the development of essential skills and knowledge for foster and kinship care practitioners.

Feedback, complaints and advocacy pathways

Children and young people who are supported via an Anglicare Southern Queensland out of home care program are encouraged and supported to provide feedback and complaints. This ensures that they receive adequate care services. We encourage them to talk to their Anglicare worker, carer, Child Safety Officer and Community Visitor.

If they’re still unhappy with how their concern or complaint has been responded to, they must be encouraged to provide written feedback via our feedback form. If, however, they believe their human rights have been breached or are unhappy with our response, we support them to access support via an external advocacy/ support service and they can escalate concerns to the Queensland Human Rights Commissioner if 45 days have elapsed and they’ve still not received a response, or an adequate response.

We provide numerous advocacy pathways to support children and young people in ensuring that their voices, concerns, and perspectives are heard.

Evaluation and continuous improvement

As part of our evaluation and continuous improvement measures to uphold the voices of children and young people in our foster care, kinship care, residential care and other out of home care services, we have implemented Practice Development and Quality Assurance and Improvement teams within our organisation.

Our Practice Development team helps to lead and grow practice through our services through connection, collaboration, research and innovation across our services and with external partners. They work closely with our Quality Assurance and Innovation team who promote continuous improvement, enhance clinical and care governance, and deliver exceptional client outcomes and experiences.

Challenges and areas for improvement

Across the sector, in Queensland, there are still challenges and opportunities to improve how children’s voices are heard in out of home care.

Challenges:

That there’s still not enough consistent and trauma-informed practice
Systemic issues including staff turnover which creates inconsistencies for carers and young people
Young people sometimes disengage from opportunities to express their thoughts and feelings as they don’t feel safe or that they’re given adequate opportunities to
Lack of data on children’s views and participation
Structural barriers and power imbalances. Sometimes decisions are still made about young people with little input considered from the young person
There are services that follow a one-size-fits-all approach and don’t adapt methods for children of different ages, cultural backgrounds, communication needs or trauma-history.

Areas for improvement:

Improving and increasing data collection and monitoring and use data to inform improvement
Build workforce capacity to reduce systemic issues
Adapt communication methods so that carers and professionals don’t use a one-size-fits-all approach when communicating with children about their decisions
Co-designing of services between foster carers and young people. Click here to check out some past co-designed initiatives that involved working with young people.
Advocate for young people and invest in more advocacy projects that aim to address challenges and needs of young people. Learn more about our advocacy projects here.