2016-05-06
Ms SPRINGLE (South Eastern Metropolitan) — My question is for the Minister for Families and Children. It is a well-known fact that Victorian foster carers, who are at the front line of the out-of-home care system, are compensated less than foster carers anywhere else in the country. Why has the Andrews Labor government failed to raise allowances for foster carers yet again in this budget to meet the true cost of care?
Ms MIKAKOS (Minister for Families and Children) — I thank Ms Springle for her question, and I remind her that in our first budget we did in fact put in a significant amount of funding to support our foster carers, in recognition of the critically important role that they do perform supporting some of our most vulnerable children and young people in our state. In fact that funding commitment of $31.3 million represented the first significant increase in a decade at the time, and it was in fact welcomed by the Foster Care Association of Victoria and other community sector organisations. What that has meant is that from 1 January this year there has been an increase in the base rate for foster carers — including other carers as well, I should point out, kinship carers and permanent carers — of more than $1000 a year.
But I make the point that we have built on that support through other supports as well. One of the first things that I did as minister, in the first 100 days, was to announce $1.5 million for a new recruitment campaign that was launched in January of this year, bringing together all 26 foster care agencies across our state in a coordinated marketing campaign, for the first time having a centralised phone number and website to provide support to our carers. We announced late last year additional funding, a further $1.7 million, for a retention strategy as well. So a lot of that work is continuing, and we will see the fruits of that work very soon because we will be updating the manual for our foster carers. It has not been updated for many, many years. We are providing additional training for our foster carers. We are providing a more streamlined support and complaints process for our foster carers as well.
Building on all of what I have said, we have announced further funding in the budget this year — $34.1 million — to boost the number of foster and kinship carers as part of our $168 million investment in the budget for child protection and family services. This is in recognition of the fact that we need to reform our child protection out-of-home care system. The member might well be aware that recently when we responded to the family violence royal commission I launched the Roadmap for Reform, which is a once-in-a-generation comprehensive reform of our child protection and out-of-home care system. That makes mention of a range of strategies to support our home-based carers in the budget.
As part of the Roadmap strategy, we also have further funding in there to support our foster carers. We are going to be providing more training for our carers and more support for vulnerable children and young people, because when I have had round tables as minister — I had a number of them last year — there have been numerous issues raised, and they do not always come to financial matters. I want to assure Ms Springle that the thing that I am hearing strongly from our carers is the need to be more supported, and that is about providing carers with appropriate training and other supports. It does not just come to the issue of money, although that is of course an important issue, which we recognised in our first budget. So we are putting in place a range of supports to support our foster carers because I do recognise them as the unsung heroes of our community, and we do need to provide them with greater support and recognition.
Ms SPRINGLE (South Eastern Metropolitan) — I thank for minister for her response, and I do take the point that foster carers did receive an increase, but it is not anywhere near what is necessary to meet the true cost of care. The Foster Care Association of Victoria is asking for an additional $80 per week for carers, which equates to $4000 per annum on top of what they already receive. While we continue to pay carers basement rates, the risk is that all the good work that the government is doing in terms of recruitment will ultimately fail. The government of New South Wales recognised the foster care estimates as the appropriate basis for setting home-based care payments way back in 2006. When will the minister act to bring Victorian carer payments to at least parity with New South Wales?
Ms MIKAKOS (Minister for Families and Children) — I thank Ms Springle for her further question on this matter. I make the point to her that it is very difficult to make comparisons with other states because they do have different payments and different arrangements. It is very hard to compare apples with oranges.
I make the point to her that in addition to the additional payments that I referred to in the budget this year and the additional support that we have put in for carers in this year's budget as well, last year we commenced the process of allocating targeted care packages. This is also something that foster carers are now able to access. We have put in a significant amount of money — $43 million was announced in March of last year and a further $19 million late last year — to both transition children out of residential care into foster care and other home-based care options as well as prevent young people from entering residential care in the first place. Our foster carers are getting the benefit of that. It means that they are able to retrofit their home, if that is what is required, or get access to a larger vehicle. So our carers are being supported through a range of initiatives by this government.