Foster Care Associations Resource list

Relevant Legislation:

• Children, Youth and Families Act 2005

Department of Human Services, Victoria, Australia (DHS): 
http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/

• The Home-based care handbook
  This handbook has been developed by DHS in liaison with the Foster Care Association of Victoria (FCAV). This handbook starts to address issues in home-based care but is not a rule book and does not explain every issue that may arise. Many of these issues require careful consideration on an individual basis. This handbook reflects relevant legislation, policy, standards, current procedures and practice guidance. It is a resource to assist carers and workers improve the standard of care for children and young people in foster care and adolescent community placement.

• Quality of Care Guidelines
  These guidelines have been developed to ensure that quality of care concerns relating to home-based carers (including lead tenants), residential carers and kinship carers are responded to in a consistent and timely manner. We must be confident that children and young people in care are safe and well cared for and that carers are supported and treated fairly while concerns are investigated.

• Charter for children in Out of home care
  Provides a clear and simple set of statements of the rights that children and young people can expect to be upheld throughout their time in care as well as explanatory notes about these rights.

• The best interests framework for vulnerable children and youth
  Has been developed to support a consistent understanding of these principles (best interest principles) and their practice ramifications.

• Court Orders: Ongoing and new
  The commencement of the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 introduces a range of new orders to encourage greater flexibility in dispositions and significant changes to current orders. This fact sheet describes these new orders, as well as changes to current orders.

• Registration standards for Community Service Organisations
  The Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 provides a formal approach to ensuring quality services for vulnerable children, youth and families through the registration of organisations providing family or out-of-home care services and the development of registration standards.

• Unborn Child Reports – for Child Protection practitioners
  The Children, Youth and families Act 2005 will allow anyone in the community to contact Child Protection or Child FIRST before the birth of a child, if they have serious concerns for the wellbeing of a child after their birth.
• Unborn Child Referrals – for Family Services and child FIRST practitioners

Best interests series:

• Aboriginal Cultural Competence Framework
  The Victorian Government’s vision is that every child thrives, learns and grows, is valued, respected and has the opportunity to become an effective adult, irrespective of family circumstances and background.This paper describes the understandings, principles and service context that underpin Aboriginal cultural competence for the child and family services system in Victoria.

• Best Interest principles: A Conceptual Overview
  This paper explores some of the theoretical underpinnings and practice ramifications of the Best Interest principles and the benefits envisioned for children, young people and their families.

Office of the Child Safety Commissioner Resources:
http://www.ocsc.vic.gov.au/

• Parenting for grandparents and relative carers - second in a series
  This booklet has been written for grandparents who are the fulltime carers of their grandchildren and for other members of the extended family who are caring for children.

• Financial support for grandparents and other relative carers - first in a series
  A resource outlining Government assistance and benefits which may be available for grandparents and other relative carers of a child.

• Calmer classrooms – A guide to working with traumatized children
  This booklet assists kindergarten, primary and secondary teachers, and other school personnel in understanding and working with children and young people whose lives have been affected by trauma.

• Charter for children in out-of-home care (102k, pdf)
  A double-sided A4 reference check list which describes the basic rights of children living in out-of-home care

• Great Expectations (3.38Mb, pdf)
  Supporting children and young people in out-of-home care to achieve at school

Other publications of interest:

• Foster Their Culture: Caring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children in Out of Home Care
• Protecting Children is Everyone’s Business: National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2009-2020
• Annual Report of Inquiries into the deaths of children known to Child Protection 2009
• Supporting carers of other people’s children: A handbook on support for foster, relative and kinship carers and the children and young people in their care (AFCA).
• Things to look at when selecting child-safe activities or services for your child. (OCSC)
• Report Card: Transitioning from Care