Carers form the heart of our organisation and are vital to the delivery of services to support children, young people and people with disability. Recruitment of new carers, and support and retention of our existing carers is a key priority for the board and executive team. Life Without Barriers’ national teams have undertaken a range of initiatives over the past 12 months to strengthen our carer community in line with the board priorities and LWBs business plan.
We continued to work hard to maintain strong relationships with our existing carers. Our carers participate as much as possible as members of the team, and support ongoing recruitment of new carers at foster carer information evenings and word-of-mouth.
To maintain steady sustainable growth in our number of carers, we undertook a range of strategies to raise awareness of foster caring and the need for more foster carers. These included high visibility advertising on billboards and buses as well as cinema, radio and print advertising, and participation in interagency initiatives, such as the Fostering NSW campaign. We also attended community events around the country including the Port Lincoln Tuna Fest in South Australia and Agfest in Tasmania and created our own foster care tent for Queensland.
A research project on Carer Attraction and Engagement with Sydney University of Technology was completed with a range of key staff and established foster carers to provide insight into LWBs in carer attraction, recruitment and retention. Strategies will be developed in response to the project findings.
Carer Learning and Development
We place a strong emphasis on pre-service training for new foster carers. Between January and June 2014, we trained140 new carers, covering themes such as trauma and attachment, behaviour management, and working within a case management framework.
We also offer a range of learning opportunities to our existing carers including self-paced courses through our LWB Carer Learning Pathways. For foster carers of children and young people with high-level complex needs we partner with specialist learning and development agencies to provide training to our carers. We extended our resources during the year on our LWB Carer website which provides general information, advocacy links and self-care information. We also launched a trial Facebook page for carers to share ideas.
Carer Consultation
One way we stay connected with our valued carers is through consultation groups. Volunteer consultation groups were held with home-based carers around the country to discuss matters of interest and to provide feedback on services, and raise new initiatives. LWBs National Carer Consultation Group (NCCG) is our internal body representing the views of our carer community at a corporate level. Membership is for two years and a new group of members is welcomed to the NCCG in late 2014.
Carer Awards
This year, Life Without Barriers launched the inaugural 2014 National Carer Awards in partnership with the Australian Government’s Department of Social Services, Carers Australia and Families Australia. The National Carer Awards provide an opportunity to publicly recognise carers who go above and beyond in providing care to some of Australia’s most vulnerable people. The awards themselves are announced towards the end of year but already have helped to raise the profile of this volunteer-dependent service.
