Carer Advocacy & Support
Foster and kinship carers strive to keep the children and young people in their care to feel safe, loved and supported.
However, carers can face challenges and gaps in support which make it harder to support children and young people reach their full potential.
That’s why Connecting Foster and Kinship Carers provides advocacy and support to carers in South Australia to:
- Improve experiences and outcomes in family-based care in South Australia.
- Address and resolve challenges carers encounter through individual advocacy, deliver by our Carer Advocacy Service.
- Help carer families navigate the system, including linking to other supports
- Draw on and elevate carer voices in our systemic advocacy
Individual Advocacy
When carers are experiencing an issue or conflict, we can support them by:
- Listening to carers points of view and understanding their needs.
- Providing independent, empathic, confidential and conflict-of-interest free support.
- Explaining the responsibilities and requirements of other partners in the care team.
- Ensuring carers voices are heard and considered.
- Speaking on the carer’s behalf when they’re not comfortable or able to speak for themselves.
- Helping carers navigate decisions, reviews, or court-related matters that could affect their contact and care arrangements.
- Empowering carers to understand their options and make informed choices.
Systemic Advocacy
As the independent peak body, we draw on the experiences we hear about through the Carer Advocacy Service to inform our systemic advocacy. We also consult and engage with a range of carers and organisations to drive systemic change.
More information about our work in driving systemic changes is available at the Systemic Change page.
Systemic Change
Advocating for foster and kinship carers
Advocacy is central to what we do – both for individual carers and across the broader child protection system.
We provide foster and kinship carers with access to an independent carer-informed advocacy body that works to address challenges and improve outcomes across family-based care in South Australia.