About This Service
Let’s do better together – become a Foster Carer today!
Kyabra provides a Foster and Kinship care service for children and young people who are unable to live with their birth parents. This involves the recruitment, training and provision of ongoing support to carer families, to provide care and support to children in out-of-home care.
What is Foster Care?
Foster care is when a child lives with a different family who is able to provide them with a caring, safe and loving home. There are many different types of care, including long-term, short-term, and short break care.
The two main goals of out-of-home care are either reunification to the child’s family, or permanent care with another family. Being a foster carer means opening your home to children and young people who you are not related to, biologically; children and young people who can’t live in their own home because they have experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse or neglect, are at risk of experiencing one of these forms of harm, or cannot live at home for other reasons.
Can I apply to be a Foster Carer?
Under the legislation, you must be the following:
- at least 18 years of age;
- willing to undergo a suitability assessment as well as a checks to your child protection and personal history (conducted by the Central Screening Unit);
- willing and able to complete pre-service training and additional training if required to meet the individual needs of any children placed in your care.
What are some of the necessary qualities of a carer?
Carers can come from diverse cultural backgrounds and can be any gender, single, married or de facto, same sex couples and working full or part time, or casually, or retired.
The main qualities that make an effective foster carer are a genuine interest in children and young people and a focus on the child’s best interests. Carers are expected to meet the Standards of Care for the children placed in their care. They are also expected to attend mandatory training to resource them with the information needed to meet the required standards of care.
Other strong attributes include empathy and good listening skills, perseverance when things get tough, flexibility and adaptability, an ability to guide and discipline children without the use of physical punishment, a willingness to work with other people in the child’s life such as birth parents and caseworkers, and a willingness to support the child to develop a sense of identity that includes their culture, language and religion, where appropriate.
It is also important that Foster Carers are willing and able to ask for help when needed, and are committed to assisting children to maintain connections to their families. The ability to say goodbye is a challenging yet necessary part of the caring journey.
What support will I get as a Foster Carer?
Our foster carers have access to:
- 24 hour phone support;
- Regular contact with Kyabra staff, offering support and information;
- Quality advanced training opportunities;
- Access to Community events, support groups and social activities.
Carers also receive a caring allowance, which is to cover the day to day expenses of caring for a child.
If you live outside of the Brisbane region please call Queensland Foster and Kinship Care on (07) 3256 6166.
You can also find out more information from the Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs website, and from the Connecting with Carers Portal.