Types of Placements: All types of kids need all types of care 🦁

Tribe supports potential carers and those ‘not quite ready yet’ potential carers by helping you to consider what type of placement might be best for you and your family. Fostering doesn’t have to mean full-time primary placements. It can be short-term, emergency or short-break/respite care as well.

But not every type will be right for you.

Some people say they’re going to try fostering by ‘easing in’ with respite. But this isn’t like picking something from a menu that you can send back to the kitchen if you don’t like it. You have to know what that type of care means and be able to consider carefully if it’s going to be right for you.

I’ve known many people who have thought, “I’ll try with respite” but have made an instant connection with a child, so they have gone on to be that child’s long-term, forever-family. I’ve also known others who are “absolutely 110% committed” to being long-term carers only to take on a young person and find after 4 or 5 weeks, “its just not for us” resulting in grief and loss for the carers but immeasurably worse pain for a child when they have yet another placement end.

Emergency

This typically is a full-time primary placement without any prior warning and can occur within 24 hours; more often with as little as 1-2 hours notice. This is usually due to a child being removed from a harmful situation or a placement has ended unexpectedly and a new one is needed imminently. It can be for any time limit; as short as 24 hours, to a week, to two months, all the way up to 2 years (or longer if the child’s orders change & carers are agreeable to keeping the child or young person in placement long term). Your primary role is to be available to a child, to help settle them during what is likely a very scary time, to give them a safe, nurturing experience, whether its for a night or a month before they move out of your care.

If Emergency care is of interest to you, consider the following:

- Do you have car seats, cots, bed linen, toys, games and books for a wide range of ages and genders, or be able to get this quickly and with limited warning?

- Do you have other children in the home, and if yes, how are you going to prepare them for a new child coming into their space with no warning, no introductions etc?

- Would you consider yourself a flexible, adaptable and responsive person who can move, change and pivot your life, your routine, your thinking, quickly and without too much stress?

- Emergency placements can end as abruptly as they start. How do you feel you will be able to build attachment and rapport quickly yet manage the loss and end of a placement with limited notice?

Short Break Care (Respite)

This can be both planned or unplanned. Typically, SBCs (otherwise known as respite carers) can offer one-off or regular respite sessions for children in primary placements whose carers need a break, are unwell or have on events/travel for which the foster child cannot attend.

Sometimes it can also be to build a child’s ‘village’ and ensure continuity of care if/when primary placements end. SBC can be for one night however most often is two to three nights over a weekend (Friday after school until Sunday evening or even drop off at school on Monday morning). However, SBC can be much longer - school holidays for two weeks or more; weeks when children are on exclusion from school and primary carers aren’t available during the day to care for them; primary carers have overseas or interstate holidays and the foster child cannot attend (i.e. birth parents do not give permission, or carers cannot afford to take them, or they don’t have passports for the child).

Some respite placements become primary placements when the primary placement ends and the child is placed in ‘respite’ until an alternative primary placement is found; if nothing suitable is found, the respite placement becomes the new primary placement.

The best type of respite placement is when its within your own network, so if you are interested in becoming a primary carer, consider who in your network would want to have ‘natural’ respite with a child in your care. Consider, who takes your kids for breaks now, a sister, a best friend, a parent? Could they play a similar role for a foster child in your care?

If Short Break care is of interest to you, consider the following:

- Do you have the room/space to offer a child which can quickly be turned into an individualised, comfortable space for a child to feel safe?

- Do you have other children in placement and if yes, how are you going to prepare these children to ‘share’ their home or placement for the weekend?

- What are your work and other commitments like? Do you have flexible working arrangements to be able to give 100% attention to another child for a weekend, or a week on school holidays, for example?

- You will need to work closely with another carer, the primary carer, to try and keep some consistency and stability for the child. How will you do this?

- You may not be overly involved with the case planning for that child i.e. you won’t be determining where they go to school, what contact plans might look like; so you might feel like you don’t have a lot of say or that much responsibility. Will that be ok to you?

Short Term Care

This type of full-time primary placement may start as Emergency or Short Break care or simply as a new placement. ‘Short Term’ usually refers to 12-24 months however there is no hard or fast rule and it depends on the state or territory in which you live. Usually the placement is a with a child or young person whose case plan is reunification; i.e. the child is on a type of short term child protection order (of up to 24 months), although it is not always the case.

The placement requires carers who can support family contact and all things related to reunification. They need that careful balance of building attachment and connection with a child with the very clear view they will (likely) be returning home or to kin in the future.

However, the case plan may change for the child; they may towards a longer-term order which involves the child being in care until they are 18. That means carers need to consider whether they will remain the child’s carers and become their ‘forever family’ which may not be what they originally planned.

If Short Term placements are of interest to you, you need to consider:

- How will you introduce a child into your home, integrate them into your lives for a long period of time (up to 24 months) while knowing the child will potentially be moving on again?

- You have to be emotionally intelligent, able to provide nurturing care and treat a child like they are your own, all the while supporting reunification attempts.

- How do you prepare your own children to build relationships with foster children that may not endure?

- How will you actively work with a birth family to support a reunification plan?

Long Term Care

This typically is a full-time primary placement that may have commenced as emergency, respite/short break or short-term care and has become a long term placement as the child is on a long-term/until 18 years of age child protection order. This may have commenced when short-term carers decided to transition the child to a long term placement once the longer-term order was approved. This means the child, whatever age they commence with the placement, is to remain with the carers until the age of 18 and beyond. They are what we consider the child’s ‘forever family’.

If long term care is more for you, you need to carefully consider:

- Are you prepared to care for a child who has trauma long term, are you committed to being their ‘forever family’, to 18 years and beyond?

- Do you have other children at home and if yes, how are you going to prepare these children about a new long term placement starting? This is ultimately like having a new sibling, full-time.

- What are your work and other commitments like? Do you have flexible working arrangements to be able to meet this child’s needs just like you would your own biological child, i.e. taking them to sports, medical appointments, attending school functions, managing suspensions etc?

- You will need to be able to manage family contact arrangements that can be difficult but must remain in place for the long term wellbeing of a child’s identity. What will be some of the challenges of managing family contact? What will be some of the positives?

There’s a lot there to consider, and if you are feeling overwhelmed, just take some time and reflect on why you are wanting to foster in the first place. Is it because you know there are children who are in need of a home? Is it because you want to be part of someone’s village but you don’t feel you can be their full-time person? Is it because you want to support children to be with their birth families whenever safe and suitable to do so?

Consider the motivation behind why you want to foster and you’ll know what might be the right choice for you. If you have questions, reach out to us here at The Tribe Project or complete the Pre-Screen Quiz and connect with one of our support agencies, who will provide further information and training about placement types and matching.

Until next time.

Mel - CoFounder