CETC - Trauma-informed care connects to children’s needs; trauma-informed carer training should connect to carers’ needs - CETC

Trauma-informed care connects to children’s needs; trauma-informed carer training should connect to carers’ needs

Foster care Kinship care Trauma-informed care

Mar 2023

Written by Billy Black

The CETC is thrilled to announce our new online course “Caring for Children and Young People with Trauma” is now live and free for all South Australian kinship and foster carers! Developed in partnership with the South Australian Department for Child Protection, this self-paced course is an interactive look at the foundations of trauma-informed care, with demonstrative case studies, interactive quizzes, and inspiring video talks from real carers, therapists, and psychology experts.

Foster and kinship carers need quality training and an established support network before it’s needed, not offered reactively to challenges as they develop. Training in trauma-informed care helps carers understand and empathise with children’s behaviours, keep calm in their chaos, and focus on building a life-changing relationship with a very special child. Support needs to come not only from family and friends but the whole Care Team: the social workers, teachers, counsellors, birth family – everyone who comes together to wrap support around the child.

Unfortunately, the busy schedules and demands of care make it difficult for carers to access or attend training. Additionally, training often tries to cover all care types despite the different needs of foster and kinship carers, or for those caring for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Even when carers can attend training, content that focuses on meeting children for the first time or managing cross-cultural placements can feel alienating to kinship carers, who often view themselves as “just Grandma”, a carer only by technicality.

However, in the past two decades the ratio of children in foster care to kinship care has reversed, from 53% in foster care and 34% in kinship care in 1999, to 37% in foster care and 57% in kinship care in 2021 (AIHW, 2021). This change represents our better understanding of the importance of relational connection in healing trauma, and our slow progress in understanding cultural appropriateness in care (Scott & Swain, 2002). Many studies suggest children are faring better in kinship care than in foster care (Hartnett, Dawe, & Russell, 2012; Winokur, Holtan, & Batchelder, 2018), making kinship care the new first choice for home-based care rather than “a last resort” (Scott & Swain, 2002).

Despite fast-growing support for kinship placements in the care system, foster carers continue have better access to training and support services than kinship carers, and those opportunities are still designed primarily with foster carers in mind (Harding, Murray, Shakespeare-Finch, & Frey, 2020). Kinship carers also often become carers during a family crisis, with no preparation or training for this life-changing role (McPherson & Macnamara, 2014).

Statistically, kinship carers are older, have poorer physical and mental health, and experience more stress in their role than foster carers, especially in accessing financial support (Harding et al., 2020). In addition to practical differences, there are emotional and psychological differences – kinship carers have often already cared informally without support in previous family crises, have experienced previous family traumas, and have complex relationships with the child’s parents, often characterised by guilt and grief (Duerr Berrick & Hernandez, 2016). Despite these extra challenges, kinship carers report greater satisfaction in their caring role (Harding et al., 2020), while their children report better outcomes in stability, health, education, and wellbeing (Winokur et al., 2018). Carer training needs to start considering the research we now have in the different challenges that kinship and foster carers face, and tailor training supports to meet carers’ needs. Our new “Caring for Children and Young People with Trauma” training package is online and self-paced to cater to busy schedules and comes in two versions for foster carers and kinship carers, to target the needs of each. A third version targeting the needs of those caring for Aboriginal children is also currently being co-designed with Aboriginal care practitioners. If you know any carers in South Australia, please share this opportunity to enhance and develop their skills and knowledge of trauma-informed care by finding out more and registering here. Or, if you think you know carers outside South Australia who could benefit from this kind of training, please let us know here to help us develop similar training projects in future.

Trauma-informed care – Research brief
Understanding the needs of kinship carers in Australia – Research brief

References

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2021). Child Protection Australia: Children in the Child Protection System. Cat. no. CWS 75. Canberra: AIHW. https://www.aihw.gov. au/reports/child-protection/child-protection-australia-children-in-thechild-protection-system

Duerr Berrick, J. & Hernandez, J. (2016). Developing consistent and transparent kinship care policy and practice: State mandated, mediated, and independent care. Children and Youth Services Review, 68, 24-33 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.06.025

Harding, L., Murray, K., Shakespeare-Finch, J., & Frey, R. (2020). The well being of foster and kin carers: A comparative study. Children and Youth Services Review, 108, 104566

Hartnett, P., Dawe, S. & Russell, M. (2012). An investigation of the needs of grandparents who are raising grandchildren. Child and Family Social Work, 19(4), 411-420.

McPherson, L. & MacNamara, P. (2014). Therapeutic kinship care: A carer’s perspective’. Children Australia, 39(4), 221-5.

Scott, D, & Swain, S. (2002). Confronting Cruelty: Historical Perspectives on Child Protection in Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Winokur, M.A., Holtan, A. & Batchelder, K.E. (2018). Systematic Review of Kinship Effects on Safety, Permanency and Well Being Outcomes. Research on Social Work Practice, Vol; 28(1) 19-32 https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731515620843