Learning goals

This chapter will enable you to:

1. Understand the role of out-of-home care in keeping children safe from harm

2. Identify the advantages and disadvantages of maintaining contact between natural parents and their children in out-of-home care

3. Develop awareness of the experiences of parents whose children have been placed in out-of-home care

4. Recognise the potential of child welfare practitioners to engage parents involved with the child protection system in ways that will enhance their ability to interact with their children in out-of-home care

5. Identify the characteristics of parenting programs that promote engagement of parents whose children are in out-of-home care.

Introduction

The last decade has witnessed a doubling in the rates of children living in out-of-home care in Australia from approximately 3.1 per thousand children (14,470 children) to 6.2 per thousand children (31,166 children) on 30 June 2008 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2009). Similar increases in the rates of children taken into care are also evident in other developed countries like England, the Republic of Ireland and the US (Department for Education and Skills, 2006; Health Social Services and Public Safety, 2006).

Disturbingly, the growing number of children requiring out-of-home care, the need to secure permanent placements for many of these children thereby reducing the capacity of existing carers to take on new children entering the system, and a reduction in the number of people willing to become foster parents has meant that only children with the most serious needs are placed in care (Bromfield et al., 2007).