The FCAV proudly celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2022!

Since 1992, the FCAV has been an incorporated body of passionate foster carers and supporters with a desire to make a difference in the lives of children and young people who are in care, their carers and the system they care within. Board members, volunteers and staff have worked tirelessly ever since to improve the supports and recognition of foster care in the out of home care system and in the community. 

The FCAV has grown from a small representative group of foster carers to today, offering critical and unique statewide foster care services, membership engagement and support to carers and the sector, as the well-respected peak body for foster carers in Victoria.

The FCAV has proudly advocated for the needs of carer households and supported individual carers, our sector partners and our foster carer membership to achieve great change within the system for carers, with an evidence-based knowledge of the continued need for improvement into the future. 

We will look back and celebrate this milestone of FCAV's provision of foster care support, advocacy, training and opportunities for the last 30 years, and look towards the future of care for our 5,200 members and nearly 500 strong associate members. 

To understand the importance and impact of the Foster Care Association of Victoria over 30 years we will be hearing from long-standing members about how the out of home care system operated for carers in Victoria through the decades, the improvements that have been made and the challenges that lie ahead.

The culture and process change that FCAV members were charged with advocating for 30 years ago can still be recognised in the challenges we face today, but the successive group of vocal and strident foster carers, staff and members of FCAV has led to shifts in the sector and improvements for carers and the children and young people in their care, which would not have happened without the formation of FCAV as a peak body and the individual and collective work that got it there.

Sandra Creaner is an FCAV alumni from the 1990s. She was a critical part of the early work that a 12-person volunteer committee of foster carers undertook to support one another and other foster carers to navigate the system at a time when little independent support was available to Victorian foster carers. Read Sandra Creaner's account of that time for foster carer's and the FCAV here.

Katie Hooper former CEO of FCAV and long-time foster carer reflects on her 10 years at the head of the FCAV and the major progress made by the organisation from a volunteer run, to a staffed peak body with influence across the sector for better foster care support.