AUSTRALIA
Study finds that a year after leaving care, half of the young people have had a period of homelessness.
Rocky road to adulthood for kids in care
Terri Glew is 22. At the age of five she and her sisters were taken from her heroin-addicted mother. She spent the next 11 years in foster care in rural New South Wales but then left, and ended up in refuges and other temporary accommodation.
"The best thing for a kid when they're younger is a stable environment, and they know that's where they can go through anything," Ms Glew told AM. "But when you don't have parents and things like that, yeah it's a little bit hard because you don't know where you stand or where is home."
But one of the hardest points in her life came when she became an adult and was no longer in the care of the Government. Suddenly she had to fend for herself financially and socially. "When I turned 18, I thought my life was over completely because I'm thinking, 'Well, I don't have parents, I don't have DOCS (Department of Community Services) supporting me any more. Well, how am I going to get on with doing what I have to do?'," she said.
A new report by the CREATE Foundation has found about 60 per cent of people who have been in care have a similar story.
Even though all state and territory governments have policies to make sure people are supported once they turn 18, the foundation's CEO Jacqui Reed says they're often not implemented. "All the policies will say that a child should have a case plan that carries them through and it will identify what their needs are, that money will be made available to the child to be able to transition successfully," she said. "However there cases are where case workers don't know that this policy exists, so the child isn't getting what they're entitled to."
A year after leaving care, half of the young people have had a period of homelessness. Almost half will be unemployed, nearly a third of women will have become pregnant, half would have considered or attempted suicide, and almost half will have committed a crime.
There are about 25,000 children in care in Australia and Ms Reed says they don't need to have the same troubles as those who have gone before them. "Our commitment to them is that we will not let this slip off the agenda," she said. The foundation is calling for national consistency, and a commitment from state governments to make sure all children in care are prepared for adulthood.
Michael Turtle
23 April 2008