Berry Street Web Docs Annual Report 2014 | Page 20

A family affair

SALLY’S story
Sally separated 18 months ago from her husband of
20 years, because of family violence. She was struggling
to re-establish her parental role with her six children,
aged two to 16. Our Family Violence team in the North
worked with Sally on her own, used play therapy to
help the three younger children, listened to the three
adolescents and worked with the family as a group
when thirteen year old Tracey had trouble at school
She had gone to live with her father who didn’t expect
her to return to school. We worked intensively with the
school, Sally and Tracey, and eventually Tracey came
back to her mother’s house and returned to school.
Tracey is now going to school every day, feeling more
secure and in control and Sally’s relationships with her
older children continue to improve and have a beneficial
impact on the younger children.

21
Foster and Kinship Care

Family Violence
While violence in the home may have been
considered a ‘private’ affair in the past, thankfully
this is no longer the case. As Police Commissioner
Ken Lay has said many times, family violence is the
number one crime confronting the Police.

Our family violence teams in the North and Ballarat
have had to manage a huge increase in demand.
This increase has put enormous pressure on our

The power of foster care

John’s
Story

John was removed from his mother as
a baby, but was subsequently returned
home. This was disastrous for him and
at 18 months he was removed again and
placed with foster carers. He couldn’t
walk, make sounds, have eye contact
or acknowledge human presence. With
the love, persistence and knowledge
of the foster carers, and the team
supporting them, he quickly made up the
development he had lost. He celebrated
his second birthday as every two year
old should – curious, feeling loved and
engaged in the world.

The evidence is clear – violence in
the home is the leading contributor
to death and ill health for women
aged 15 to 44
staff and means their time is increasingly taken
up with handling crises, rather than helping the
women and children rebuild their lives.
We were very pleased that our High Risk
Demonstration Project in Broadmeadows was
refunded and informed the model to be rolled out
across Victoria.
Our two services assisted 11,449 women with 1,322
children in the past year. This is a 14% increase on
last year and cannot be sustained with the current
resources.

^^For the third year in a row, more carers left (616)
than commenced (442) in Victoria (AIHW Child
Protection 2012/13)

^^Foster care reimbursements are the lowest in
Australia and allowances for the care of a ten
year old child are 32% below those in NSW

^^Foster care has dropped from 37% in 2002 to
22% in 2012

^^We expect our most experienced foster carers
to retire in the next few years.

This is the reason we have developed a professional
model of foster care and are working with the
Foster Care Association of Victoria on the ‘Save
Foster Care’ campaign.
Because we know the value of good foster care and
the growing number of children who need it, and
despite the inadequate reimbursement, we have
invested $200,000 in marketing and recruitment.
This has resulted in 75 new carers being accredited,
but our total pool only increased by 42 households
to 245.
We supported 805 children and young people in
foster care and respite care and celebrated the
success of our Gippsland program which has grown
from providing foster care for two children five
years ago to 50 today.
In addition, our Gippsland and Hume teams
supported 137 children and young people who
were removed from parents and are living with
relatives. The pressure this puts on grandparents,
in particular, was one of the issues we raised in our
submission to the Senate Inquiry on grandparents
who take primary responsibility for raising their
grandchildren.
Our Hume and Northern regions held very
successful camps in January, which were enjoyed
by 149 children and 69 foster carers.

SERVICES

The evidence is clear – violence in the home is
the leading contributor to death and ill health for
women aged 15 to 44 and may have a lifelong
impact on them and their children.

On every indicator, foster care is in crisis in Victoria.