It is a sad fact that in Australia today, there are thousands of children and young people who cannot remain with their family. This is all too often as a result of physical and emotional abuse by those closest to them. When children need to feel safe and cared for, our foster carers work reparatively with children and young people to provide them with an opportunity to grow and to be the best they can be.
Kennerley carers transform young people’s lives and, where possible, work towards reunification with their family. When this is not possible, our foster carers may provide a long term home where they can achieve their individual potential.
For some children, their past and history of traumatic experiences may have impactedtheir social and emotional development. At times, these children have lacked the stability, trust, and relationships essential to healthy development and wellbeing. Our Foster Care program is designed to assist these children in their healing and create opportunities for success.
Kennerley staff genuinely believe that we are privileged to share a child’s or young person’s journey, and we must ensure that each young person is provided with the highest standard of care, nurturing and supportive relationships, connectedness, and access to opportunities for participation in their community.
In the true spirit of Kennerley, we still provide our Community Respite program, which was established in 1989, to provide temporary respite care to mums, dads and families experiencing difficulties in caring for their children. The goal of respite care is to provide short term care services for children who, for unavoidable reasons, have to be separated from their parent or guardian. This program is focused on supporting families in the community and decreasing the likelihood of children entering the child protection system unnecessarily. Our early intervention program understands that respite on its own is frequently not the answer to solving a family’s issues, therefore it is paramount that families be linked with services who can work through parenting issues with them.
Many families are quite isolated and have no extended family or friends to provide the parent/s with a break from the challenge of raising children. Respite care is usually set up in a manner to best suit the child, the family, or the carer. It is designed to provide a child with a positive experience. Kennerley aims to ensure this positive experience by trying to place children with the same carer each time they come into respite care.
The Moving On program was established in Tasmania in 2003 because Kennerley saw a gap in services to young people leaving foster care. We realised we needed to do more for our community because young people represent the future of our nation, and creating strong, vibrant and healthy communities requires investment and recognition in our youth. In Tasmania, there are approximately 1,200 young people in Foster care, a statistic that has been growing over the last decade. Through all our programs, Kennerley makes sure that young people leaving care can reach their potential and are supported to fulfil their dreams, have improved health and wellbeing outcomes,feel supported, and feel connected to Kennerley and their communities.
The young people entering our program are:
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