Ms ROSOL – On Child Safety Services, how many children in out‑of‑home care are currently in special care packages?
Mr JAENSCH – Do you have that data to hand? I’ll ask Ms Lovell to respond.
Ms C. LOVELL – I have the figures for 2023-24. Salaried residential care is 49.1 children, and therapeutic residential care is 22.7. They’re the two salaried care types.
Ms ROSOL – What’s the cost of a special care package?
Ms C. LOVELL – I don’t have that with me at the moment. It would be an average cost that we could provide, because there’s a considerable range depending on the intensity of that package.
Ms ROSOL – Is that something I can put as a question on notice given we’re getting near the end?
Mr JAENSCH – Yes
Ms ROSOL – Thank you. You’ve talked about ‘just family‑based carers’, which is quite an offensive way of speaking about it because there is no ‘just’ a family‑based care. Then you’ve talked about the special care packages and then you’re going to put the salary to carers in between. Is that in operation already, or is that the right term for it? Salaried carers or the professional carers? Have you already got people in those positions? How much are they paid for doing that caring?
Ms C. LOVELL – We do refer to it as intensive foster care at the moment. It was a very limited trial, and it’s for very young children. It was put in place to step them down from where they are in salaried care arrangements with a roster of carers. It’s likely to be expanded. I don’t have information with me at the moment about the specific numbers and costs –
Mr JAENSCH – Care to Thrive?
Ms C. LOVELL – Care to Thrive. We can provide that.
Ms ROSOL – Is that something you take as a question on notice?
Mr JAENSCH – What was the specific question be then?
Ms ROSOL – How much are the intensive foster carers paid per child in care?
Mr JAENSCH – Would that be about the cost of a package, or is it about the remuneration for an individual who is involved in delivering it?
Ms ROSOL – Does it happen as a remuneration, or does it happen as a package if it’s with someone in their home?
Ms C. LOVELL – It happens as a package, because a lot of the intensive support is actually delivered by the foster care agency.
Ms ROSOL – Okay. The question on notice then would be around the cost of the package. Can I ask what the base reimbursement rate is per child in a home-based care placement?
Ms C. LOVELL – The annual subsidy rate varies depending on the age of a child. The standard board payment for children aged zero to four is $12,532 per annum. For children aged 5 to 11 years, that’s $14,326 per annum and children aged 12 to 17, that’s $16,488.
Ms ROSOL – Thank you. I would comment that every single child in care is deeply trauma‑affected and has very complex behaviours that are difficult to manage. Carers are caring for those children at great personal cost. Providing support for carers so they can manage and cope with difficult behaviours will be a cost-effective way of sustaining placements. Will the child safety reforms that are happening at the moment provide additional supports to carers to help them continue with placements? What might some of those supports, and the level of those supports be?
Mr JAENSCH – The review of the supports required for carers is part of the reform process being undertaken now. I’m happy for Ms Lovell to speak to that if she’s able.
Ms C. LOVELL – Yes, I can do. The reforms of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service are relevant here because there’ll be special services for children in out-of-home-care. We recognise that they often have these additional needs and challenging behaviours associated with their trauma experience, and that their carers do need support to look after those children. That’s under development currently.
We also have recently commissioned a review into family‑based care subsidies. That has shown us that we do need to remodel the way that we currently fund, so that it’s easier for carers to access the support that they need. Our current model is that we have the standard payment, the subsidy rates that I just read out, but also on top of that there’s higher rates for children and young people with more complex and intensive needs.
In addition to that, the Child Safety Service reimburses carers or directly funds additional services, but there are a lot of different ways currently in place to provide funding and support. There are ways that we can streamline that, make it more transparent, more efficient and take some of the work out of it for carers in needing to build a case for support. In undertaking assessments which forward‑plan what the needs of a child are going to be over that period, it may be an annual period, and it should be made sure that the supports are already approved to streamline that.
Mr JAENSCH – I’ll note for the purposes of the committee and the Budget that the Budget includes $120 million over four years to address increased costs of out-of-home care in relation to fostering kinship care, respite, salaried care, special care packages. The reviews, the engagement strategies, the reviewing of the financial model and supports required for family-based foster carers and others and new layers of intensity of care – having an extra $30 million a year up front in the Budget allows for us to better plan for how we’d deploy those sort of reforms.
Ms ROSOL – Can I finish by requesting that you please not refer to family-based carers as ‘just’ family-based carers?
Mr JAENSCH – Okay. Where was that reference made?
Ms ROSOL – There was an answer to something somewhere along the way. I don’t know if it was intentional. I doubt it was intentional. I believe that family-based foster carers put their heart and soul into it, and they’re not ‘just’ carers.
Mr JAENSCH – Absolutely. I know. I will be mindful of that.
Ms ROSOL – Thank you.
Mr JAENSCH – Thank you.
