Join Emma a foster carer, Samantha Hauge, CEO of the Foster Care Association of Victoria, and Renée Leigh, CEO of Adopt Change, both members of the National Foster & Kinship Care Collective speaking to Tegan Taylor on ABC Radio National, Life Matters on 27 October, 2025. In Victoria, some foster carers are reporting sudden reductions in their allowances for looking after children with high-level needs. It highlights the ongoing challenges around the country when it comes to finding foster carers for children who need safe and stable homes. So, what needs to change?
ABC Radio | Oct 23, 2025
FCAV CEO, Samantha Hauge, spoke with Ali Moore about the vital role foster carers play and the need for greater clarity amid reports of significant care allowance reductions in some cases of complex, high level care of children and young people.
Keep listening in to hear from foster carer Jenny, who called in after the interview to share her personal experience.
Timestamp | 2:04 – 2:16
ABC News | Oct 23, 2025
By Ashlee Aldridge and Alice Walker
The Foster Care Association of Victoria says some carers are reporting sudden reductions to payments for children with high-level needs.
By Wendy Tuohy | The Age Newspaper | 23 October 2025
"In more than 18 years as a foster care family, Sara, her husband and their three children have shared their regional Victorian home with about 400 Victorian children in need.
Sara’s mother and aunties were also foster carers, and her children have grown up doing whatever activities they enjoy alongside children living with them at the time."
"But despite Sara’s long commitment to a system losing foster carers at twice the rate it can recruit them, she has informed the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) that she will no longer offer care.
This is not because of the breakages or other difficult conduct by troubled children, but because of the demeaning way the state government is treating foster carers.
“In 18 and a half years I’ve done foster care, I’ve never felt so disregarded, disrespected and unappreciated,” says Sara."
ABC Radio | Oct 21 2025
Samantha Hauge spoke to Nic Healey, ABC Radio about instances of care allowances for children in care being reduced from high needs level 4 and 5 subsidies, down to level 1. They discussed the implications for children's care, on carer households and where Victoria sits as an outlier in foster care funding and loss of carers.
Timestamp | 1:00 – 1.18
The Age | Oct 20, 2025
By Wendy Tuohy
Samantha Hauge, CEO of the Foster Care Association of Victoria spoke to Wendy Tuohy, Senior Journalist at The Age Newspaper, about instances of Victorian children in foster care with high-level medical, psychological or physical needs having their state support allowances cut by three-quarters.
The Guardian | 20 July, 2025
By Jonathan Barrett Business editor
"Victoria’s allowance rates are among the lowest in the country, and it’s no coincidence that the state is losing carers at a rapid rate. In 2023-24, 429 carer households left the Victorian system, and just 162 joined, according to AIHW data. Rowan Pulford, a policy adviser at the Foster Care Association of Victoria, says the cost of not investing in foster care is enormous.
“You either invest in foster carers or you spend the money elsewhere,” says Pulford, who is also a carer. “Emergency placements and residential care are not only hugely expensive, but also incredibly damaging to the child. “The life trajectory of those children can also be really poor.”
ABC Radio 774 | April 23rd 2025
From the need for stronger support for carers and the children in their care, the FCAV's Care Allowance Campaign, to who can become a carer and the different types of care available, Natalie covered it all with passion and purpose.
Timestamp | 1:37 – 2:02
ABC News | May 16th, 2025
ABC News | Mon 15 Jul 2024
By Kieran Rooney
The Sunday Age | 3 December 2023
The Canberra Times | October 25, 2023
Herald Sun | 10 September 2023
By Carly Douglas
"Struggling foster carers are deserting the industry in Victoria due to being paid the lowest allowances in the country to look after vulnerable children. Victorian foster carers are leaving the industry in droves after years of being short-changed by the government, with some warning the state’s most vulnerable kids will be forced into troubled residential care homes."
Natalie Pryor, Charney Marshall carers, and Samantha Hauge CEO, spoke to Carly Douglas.
Sun 7 May 2023
"It's a real struggle, I will be honest, around finding foster carers that are willing to work with these really complex little kiddies that find it difficult to navigate through life because of the trauma they've been exposed to,", Melinda Carlisle said.
By Kieran Rooney
Herald Sun | February 13, 2023 | paywalled article
The state government was urged to make major changes to the foster system last year, now 12 months on carers are quitting in droves.
A confidential report that called for Victorian foster carers to receive a major increase in their allowances has now been sitting with the government for a year, despite calls to act urgently on its findings and support the struggling child protection system.
Advocates have warned financial pressure is forcing carers out of the system in droves and putting more pressure on other overworked parts of the system.
The Australian Newspaper | 12 June, 2022
By JOHN FERGUSON ASSOCIATE EDITOR | Paywall article
