The Institute of Child Protection Studies (ICPS) at the Australian Catholic University has released a new report, Foster and kinship carer recruitment and retention: Encouraging and sustaining quality care to improve outcomes for children and young people in care.
The report is the second stage of the three-year project that aims to identify the most effective strategies to attract, support and retain foster families in Australia. The report considers what strategies work for attracting, engaging, supporting and retaining carers to promote quality care of children in out of home care, as well as the available evidence regarding different models of home-based care in attracting, engaging, supporting and retaining carers.
The findings suggest general support for a continuous, connected process that is culturally sensitive and evidence-based especially considering the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out of home care.
The third stage of this project is a survey available now that asks organisations about approaches to recruiting carers, supporting carers, existing models of care and case management and evaluations of outcomes. The survey takes 20 minutes to complete and will close on Friday, 14th July 2017. Take part online here.