We were so pleased to have Liana Buchanan, Principal Commissioner for Children and Young People, as Guest Speaker at the FCAV Carer Celebration and AGM on September 13th, 2024 for foster care week. The Commission provides targeted and evidenced based advocacy for children and young people in the out of home care system, hearing direct from children and young people and their carers. Liana outlined the ways that good care can positively change the lives of children and young people but that there is still much to do to support carers so that they in turn can support the children in their care. Last year, the Commission released the “Let us Learn” report following their extensive inquiry into the school and education experiences of children, young people and their carers.

“I have attended many of the FCAV functions over the years but this is the first time I have been asked to speak so I am honoured to be here to speak with you about what we’ve learnt at the Commission for Children and Young People.

Over my 8 years as the Commissioner, I have often heard the aspects of being a foster carer and the value you place on your role in the lives of children and young people in care, but the various challenges that come with the role have continued to become clearer and clearer to me. It is clear that you can't have safe healthy, happy children without a loving stable and supportive carer. It's also become ever more clear to me that for the sake of children and young people, we have to get better at addressing the various ways that caring for children in the out of Home Care system is made harder than it needs to be.

At the Commission, children and young people often tell us, unprompted, just how much the foster carers that they've had a chance to live with have meant to them. Positive placements with carers can be transformational. They remind a child or a young person that they're special, that they deserve to be loved and that they're entitled to be safe.

This can build their confidence, it supports their mental health and well-being and helps them to form meaningful, enduring relationships that can last through their whole lives.

I always think that nothing conveys some of what I'm talking about more than the voices and words direct from children and young people themselves….

Milla - a child who was 12 at the time we spoke to her in foster care said “I'm special as the people I live with chose me and want me and I appreciate they've cared for me and my brother.”

Agnes, who at 17 was still in foster care when we spoke to her, said “I've found a home but there's so many other kids who haven't been able to be as lucky, like those kids in a resi care unit who are feeling scared. Everybody needs to be able to feel at home and safe and secure and I want everybody to be as lucky as I am.’

I could stand up here for a very, very long time and quote what children and young people have said around “I'm where I am today because what my foster family has given me.”

As well as all of that incredible benefit and positive impact, our work has also told us again and again that carers need support to be able to provide the conditions for that care.

Carers have consistently told us across all of our inquiries and many other conversations besides, that they would benefit from better, earlier information about children and young people in their care. Timely access to financial support and enough financial support to meet the needs of those children . Support to understand children’s behaviours and support to know how to respond well to those behaviours. Practical help with the basics like identity documents. (We have seen some incredible improvements in recent years but the fact that these still have to be navigated is a source of frustration for me). Carers tell us they want access to respite when they need it.

But I have to say most of all, the strongest theme that I have heard over my time, and still today as Commissioner, from foster carers, is that they want to feel heard. They want to feel respected and they want to feel valued across all parts of the care system that they're so central to.  Sadly that's not always how they feel. If carers aren't well supported the bottom line is, it makes it hard for them, for you, to give the support that's needed for the children and young people in your care.

Now, we saw this in our most recent systemic inquiry that we tabled the end of last year. It's an inquiry called “Let us learn” and  it looked at the educational experiences of children right across the out of home care system; in foster, kinship, residential care and so on.

I won't go through the findings of that in detail but effectively we found that across the care system, students in care experience significantly poorer educational outcomes and disengage at much, much higher rates than their peers. For example only a quarter of students in care make it through to year 12 compared to over 80% of the wider student population. Students in care were five times more likely to be suspended or expelled and I won't go into the use of modified timetable and any number of other ways in which children were excluded and often excluded without a clear, supported pathway to get back into full-time school. There are lots of things that contributed to these outcomes including learning disruptions before children entered care.  [For full report and recommendations see link below]

However, for carers we spoke to and also children and young people in care, they were very clear that the allowance isn’t enough. That they see their carers trying to stretch to pay all that they need for uniforms, for excursions, for camps, for textbooks, for laptops and so on. So, carers want financial help so they can meet those needs. But they also said they want help to navigate some of the experiences and expectations that they have with schools which often don’t recognise the specific challenges that carers and young people in care are facing. We heard lots of stories about carers’ advocacy with schools so that the children in their care could learn, could make the most of school.” They want schools to be approachable. They want adequate learning support and support with practical difficulties even getting to school or focussing on homework, bullying and so on.”

Carers provide love, support, compassion. You promote children’s rights, and dignity and provide space for hope, healing and recovery. As many young people have told me, that foster carers have fundamentally changed the course of their lives and many of you have done exactly that. So this foster care week I want to acknowledge Sam and the rest of the team from the FCAV because I see first hand their tireless advocacy to try to get better support. Most of all, I want to thank you for all that you stand for. I’ve got to tell you that some days in my job things look at bit grim, but when I get the chance to meet with a group of foster carers it gives me hope that yes, we have to do more, we have more advocacy to get there, but we’ve got such a foundation for passionate dedication to children and we will get there. Thankyou"

Principal Commissioner, Liana Buchanan