Lisa Webber Corr Response to Information Paper May 2014

Thank you for the opportunity to attend the recent ACT carers roundtable on the proposed Out of Home Care Strategy 2015-2020, and also to comment on the strategy.

Moving towards a therapeutic care modelis an important intent of this strategy. Whilst my experience with the care system only began just over one year ago when approved as a carer, I have had the benefit of training in and exposure to the therapeutic model and believe this is a critical evolution of the system from where it is today if it is to deliver better outcomes for both children in care and our community more broadly.

The new strategy proposes some sensible and much needed policy directions, not least of them being the significant increase in funding. However, in addition to seeking new funding, and given the constraints facing the system – not just with the limited numbers of carers coming into and remaining in the system but also in terms of the expected fiscal constraints facing the ACT economy – making better use of existing resources seemsto be a fundamental yet absent premise of the strategy. The strategy could recognise the assets the care system already holdsin terms of both its carer resources and its agency staff. I believe the strategy would benefit from a clearer articulation of how both carers and staff would be retained in the care system over the term of the strategy. It seems that it would not only be more cost effective to retain the carers and staff that have already been invested in through recruitment and training, it surely would also enhance outcomes for all in terms of the agencies dealing with carers that understand the system and are less likely to leave it when they encounter the sometimes difficult and confronting realities.

Measures that support agencies to better manage their resources, and especially to support carers, are important – particularly the proposal to extend the recruitment and training of carers. Despite the commendable efforts of some very dedicated and professional people working within it, my experience is that the recruitment and training stagesdo not adequately prepare new carers for what they will face when they find themselves operating within the system. This situation can be compounded by agency business as usual operations, which in a resource constrained environment tends to mean that only the most critical situations seem to get dealt with at the cost of longer term approaches. Not only can this cause frustration for carers and staff, and probably affect retention prospects of both groups, it wastes valuable agency resources. None of these things in any way seem to benefit the child in care. I refer to issues such as an inadequate focus on the opportunities for carers to participate more fully in the system (e.g. taking many months to actually be approached to take on the care of a child even when a carer is fully trained, approved and available) and being approached for caring placements that clearly differ from what the carer has expressed interest and availability to do (e.g. being approached for crisis care when clearly indicating that the carer can only offer respite care).

Any carer retention strategy needs to also acknowledge that despite the fundamental principle that the needs of the child are central to the system, in reality this is not always the deciding factor. The limited resources of agencies to manage care provision seems to result sometimes in a child not having access to some care options because the agency cannot resource them. I understand that an agency must carefully manage its resources, and needs to make fiscally responsible decisions. However, that agency operations take precedent over or prevent a child in care having access to a safe, healthy and nurturing family home environment is a crucial problem. This must be resolved for the care system to continue to function more effectively into the future, for carers and probably staff to be retained and for the children within it not to be excluded from the opportunity for better outcomes.

Simple process engineering and customer relationship management strategies may be helpful in considering the implementation planning for this strategy as they offer timely and cost effective options for addressingsome of these types of issues and making better use of existing resources, especially the carers that are already available to support the system. In particular given the issues faced by the ACT with availability of carers due to the high levels of employment and income, better approaches to engagement with carers as a whole, rather than just in the context of the immediate placement enquiry,may reduce frustration and avoid the prospect of them exiting the system as well as serving to maximise the contribution they can make.

I would like to clearly state my regard for the manner in which most of the agencies and staff working in them that I have dealt with take on the challenging work that they do. My comments are made not to criticise but only with the intent of offering insights from a carer quite new to the system. I trust that these may have potential to offer improvements to a system that I would like to be able to stay involved in, see evolve and contribute to for many years to come.

Yours sincerely,

L. Webber Corr

26 May 2014