Foster and Kinship Carer Week
Wednesday 17 September 2025
Motions
Ms CLANCY (Elder) (10:50): I move:
That this house—
(a) acknowledges Foster and Kinship Carer Week;
(b) appreciates the dedication of foster and kinship carers who provide love, stability and support to children and young people, making a lasting difference in their lives;
(c) recognises the significant impact carers have in improving outcomes for children and young people facing adversity;
(d) encourages South Australians to consider the rewarding experience of foster caring; and
(e) commends the Malinauskas Labor government's ongoing support for carers, including investments in carer advocacy, increased carer payments, implemented flexible respite support payments and refreshed the Statement of Commitment to foster and kinship carers.
Today, in the middle of Foster and Kinship Carer Week, I want to pay tribute to every single foster and kinship carer. I also want to thank those who have been foster or kinship carers in the past. Hearing stories of people who cared for dozens of children before needing to head into sort of foster carer retirement fills me with so much emotion and so much gratitude. We as a government, parliament and community cannot thank you enough.
Making the decision to care for a child or children in care is a big one. You are making the choice to share your home and life with a child who, in many circumstances, you have never met, and I am so grateful to the hundreds and hundreds of people in South Australia who have made that decision. Thank you for opening your hearts and your homes to a child or children who need help, who need support, who need safety, and who need unconditional love. That last one is really important. You are not robots who just meet the physical needs of a child. You connect with them deeply, because how can they feel safe with you without that connection and bond? You form that bond, whether they are with you for a weekend or a decade.
I want to recognise the pain and grief you can experience when that child leaves your care. Even if you are confident that that child is returning to their biological family and will be safe and will be loved, or to another carer who will provide a loving home, it is not easy, because you connected with that child, you did not put up an emotional barrier to protect yourself. You gave everything you could to them, including emotional safety, and saying goodbye regardless of the circumstances is really, really hard. Thank you for choosing to put children first, despite the emotional toll it can have on you.
I am on the Economic and Finance Committee and we have a current inquiry into home care for children and young people, and I was really happy to hear from Centacare at one of our hearings about the support provided to carers when a child has transitioned to another placement or been reunified. Centacare has a support worker go out and do loss and grief work to help carers heal from that. They also provide opportunities for carers to connect with one another and provide peer support to each other, because it is a unique experience that people rarely understand.
Apologies if I have already shared this story in this place before, but you can hear it again if I have. I remember being very upset at the end of a placement, not knowing if I would ever see that child again in my entire life, and a friend said, 'Well, it's like Guide Dog puppies. You always knew they wouldn't be with you forever.' Suffice to say that did not have the intended calming effect on me, but it is also true to say that no other foster carer or kinship carer would ever say that. They would never diminish this unique grief that we as foster and kinship carers can experience. So that peer support is incredibly important.
Before entering this place I was a member of a really incredibly warm, kind and supportive Facebook group. I am very grateful to my fellow foster carer, Anna, who told me about it. People did not get annoyed when every single person kept asking, 'What's the number for Bronwyn at Centrelink?' Bronwyn is this—well, I am not even sure if she is still there now—absolute legend you could call and say, 'I am having a problem with the childcare rebate' or 'I am having trouble with this.' She was an incredible help. Other Facebook groups will say, 'Search the group' or 'Have a look yourself', but this group was not like that. This group was just so lovely and warm, and they would just keep reposting Bronwyn from Centrelink's number over and over again.
I also recently met with local foster carers in my community, Steph and Tim. They shared with me that they have a monthly catch-up of local foster carers where they can share their experiences and provide support to one another. I am really looking forward to attending their next meeting in October.
Our government is committed to supporting carers, and we acknowledge the critical role you play and we play in helping children and young people to be safe and nurtured. We have listened to and learnt from those with lived experiences in the Child and Family Support System. We know that listening directly to foster and kinship carers, children and young people with care experience, and the organisations that support them helps our government to understand where improvements can be made as well as what is working well.
It is why our wonderful Minister for Child Protection, my friend, has announced the establishment of the Carer Council, which provides advice and reports directly to the minister. This is a council made up of paid carers who have had direct experience with the Child and Family Support System and who inform the design of policy, practice and future legislative reform. Further, the Direct Experience Group, comprising families and parents with direct experience of the Child and Family Support System, provides an opportunity for care leavers and parents and family members of children in care, or those engaged in the child protection system, to have a voice in system improvement.
In our last budget, the Malinauskas Labor government committed an additional $85.1 million over four years to support children and young people in care, and an additional $3.3 million over two years to continue the Finding Families and Additionally Approved Carer programs to expand support for the placement of children and young people with family-based carers.
As I seem to do every year in this place, I once again encourage every single one of you who is listening—and I presume many are watching, up there in Hansard and maybe up there and over there—or who might read this to please consider becoming a foster carer. If you are asked to be a kinship carer, please do not discount yourself straightaway. You can do it, and you can change a child's life. Of course it is scary, but I have seen people as they are about to leave hospital holding their baby, and they seem terrified. I think it is normal to be afraid. Parents who are leaving the hospital do not get an instruction manual, but at least we as carers do get training and do get support.
So if there is even just a tiny part of you, member for Bragg, that might think that you might want to be a foster carer, please take the first step of making contact with an agency. Dip your toe in the water. When you do, you will find that there are many different types of fostering: there is emergency, short term, long term and respite. If you feel like you just could not make fostering work, maybe respite is an option for you. We are always desperate for respite carers. You can become another trusted, supportive person in a young person's life while giving their full-time carers the break they need to continue to be the best carers that they can be. You offering up every second weekend, or a weekend a month, or some time in every school holidays makes a huge difference to that child and also to everyone around them.
If I have not managed to convince you to become a carer, please consider how else you can help. Child protection is everyone's responsibility. All of us have a role to play in the child protection system, so think about what yours is. Is it volunteering with or donating to organisations like Treasure Boxes or Puddle Jumpers? Is it cooking a meal for a family down the street who you know are struggling? Is it checking in with children and young people in your life so they know they have your support? They also get to see what it is like to be community minded, and it helps you to be a good role model for them. In everything you do, please start from a place of compassion with people and not judgement. We can all do something, and we must do something, no matter how big or small.
Thank you again to every single foster and kinship carer. Your choice has made—and will continue to make—an immeasurable difference to not just the lives of the children you care for but our whole community.
Ms CLANCY (Elder) (11:24): Thank you very much to everyone who has contributed and spoken on the motion. Thank you to the minister, the deputy leader and the member for Morialta. I did not expect to feel quite so emotional when doing this motion but when I made the choice to become a foster carer it changed my life for the better forever.
I do want to say that it is something that everyone should consider because it is really special to make a big difference to someone's life. If you are as lucky as I am, you might get cool presents like this bracelet that I received from my little one this morning as I was heading out the door. Thank you again to everyone for contributing and thank you so much to every foster and kinship carer in our state for everything you do. I commend the motion to the house.