Introduction to Better Futures
Service context
Transitioning from care
Each year, approximately 1,000 young people transition from care services on their 18th birthday, sometimes even earlier. At this point, most formal supports end, leaving many to navigate adulthood largely on their own.
The care system is not nice, even if you get through it, it’s not nice seeing the only people that you can sort of relate to going through everything and not being able to get past it all … getting into things like alcohol or drugs or getting into bad situations themselves. You know, becoming unwell and really falling off the rails.
– Care-experienced young person
Young people with a care experience often start adulthood with fewer opportunities than peers who grew up with family support. Research such as the Beyond 18 study shows poorer outcomes across education, work, wellbeing and housing.
Care orders and services
Children and young people enter care because of:
- A family needing extra support
- Conflict or breakdown within the home
- Significant risk of harm, neglect or abuse.
Care types include:
- Foster care
- Kinship care
- Permanent care
- Residential care
- Lead tenant programs (for young people aged 16-18).
Care arrangements can be temporary, medium or long-term. All care orders close at 18 but it is not uncommon for orders to close earlier for a range of reasons. At this point, all formal support services close. More detail is available on the DFFH Child Protection Orders page.
Shifting the narrative
Young people in care often face discrimination, stigma and low expectations.
We aim super low for these kids in care… We focus on deficits instead of capacity building.
— Child Protection practitioner
Advantaged Thinking challenges this by focusing on:
- Strengths, not deficits
- Agency, not dependency
- Potential, not problems.