Victoria's Child Protection system is dependent on a robust, well-resourced foster care program to deliver the court-mandated, home-based care placements for children who cannot live safely with their birth parents, kin, or extended families.
Victoria is currently facing an unprecedented foster carer shortage, with data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW, 2023) showing that for every new carer recruited, two are leaving the system. This trend has placed Victoria at the top of the nation in carer attrition rates. Without a sustainable pool of volunteer foster carers, children are increasingly being placed in costly, unsuitable alternatives such as residential care units or even emergency motel placements, which are not designed to meet their developmental or emotional needs.
This is not merely a resource issue — it is a child welfare crisis. Urgent reform is required to stem this attrition and protect children from the known harms associated with placement instability and inappropriate care environments.
While all Australian jurisdictions face challenges in recruiting and retaining foster carers, Victoria’s situation is uniquely severe. Key contributing factors include:
Victoria’s Care Allowance is the lowest in Australia, with no increase since 2016, despite rising living costs and increasing complexity in the needs of children entering care.
Inadequate investment in child-specific health and education supports, resulting in carers frequently covering out-of-pocket costs to meet children's essential needs.
Lack of funded carer retention programs including targeted, evidence-based strategies to attract and retain diverse carers.
Inconsistent or poor service delivery standards, leading to systemic failures in supporting carers and ensuring placement stability.
Lapsed agreements, carer strategies and policy commitments to foster care in recent years has lead to widespread reports of carers feeling unsupported, undervalued, and excluded from key decisions affecting the children in their care (and therefore their own lives) leading to acute disillusionment with the system and driving attrition.
To ensure the safety, wellbeing, and rights of vulnerable children in Victoria, urgent, systemic investment and reform is needed. This includes immediate increases to the care allowance, improved recruitment and retention strategies, and a commitment to co-designing a system where foster carers are properly supported, respected, and empowered in providing their cost effective and highly valued service to the children in their care, the community and the State.
The FCAV advocates for solutions to systemic challenges impacting the care of children and young people in home-based care in Victoria.
Our advocacy targets Government, Departments and sector partners through liaison and solution-based partnerships, campaigns, research and raising carer voices at all levels to address service delivery and systemic challenges. Home-based carers and supports for placements of children and young people are critical to driving down carer attrition rates, and positive word of mouth recruitment.
