Thank you for your commitment to becoming a foster carer with Brophy Family and Youth Services. Please read the community service organisation (CSO) / foster carer agreement below carefully. It sets out what you can expect from us, and what we ask of you as a foster carer.
By signing below, you confirm that you have read, understood, and accept the responsibilities set out in this agreement.
• To provide appropriate information to foster carers, taking into account the type of care being provided.
• To provide formal, initial and ongoing training opportunities for foster carers, sufficient to cover the range of skills and information required of them.
• To visit foster carers regularly (quarterly as a minimum or by negotiation with family and supervisor).
• To ensure financial reimbursement of foster care costs through foster care reimbursements, special grants, and by accepting accounts for payment where this is negotiated between the program and the foster carer.
• To recognise that foster carers have the right and responsibility to refuse a placement they do not feel is appropriate.
• To negotiate with foster carers over issues that relate to a placement (for example, contact with specialised services, access).
• To develop an open and trusting relationship with foster carers to ensure effective communication, and to encourage a partnership that reflects mutual respect, acknowledgment of each other's skills and experience, and a willingness to challenge.
• To ensure that a duty worker from the community service organisation is contactable at all times, including by after-hours pager. Staff members are not expected to provide their home telephone numbers to foster carers.
• To arrange, where possible, respite or relief care where required by foster carers, and negotiate child care arrangements.
• To ensure foster carers are informed as promptly as possible with all information necessary for the optimum care of foster children or young people.
• To provide, where necessary, professional consultations, equipment and other physical resources essential for children or young people.
• To retain the authority for placement decisions for both statutory and voluntary cases.
• To retain the authority to review a foster carer's performance and, if necessary, to terminate participation where the program can no longer have confidence in the foster carer's ability to provide the required standard of care, and/or an irretrievable breakdown of the cooperative working arrangement has occurred. The protocol for responding to complaints describes procedures for this.
• To make provision for the hearing of appeals against decisions and for resolution of complaints made to the program, and to advise foster carers of their options and the procedures to be followed.
• To, in most cases, retain authority for management of the case plan. Where the program is not managing the case plan, regular review of the goals and purpose of placement is undertaken.
• To retain ownership of foster carer files when foster carers exit the program.
• To provide the day-to-day care, management and discipline necessary to meet the needs of children or young people in their care, as required by Brophy Family and Youth Services. Where appropriate, support networks providing unsupervised care to OOHC children should be made aware of agency discipline policy and expectations.
• To update the agency of any regular and ongoing care arrangements within their support networks for foster children, to ensure appropriate checks are completed.
• To keep the program informed of the child or young person's progress in the placement, major changes, problems, management issues, serious incidents and so on, and to consult with the program whenever issues arise.
• To encourage a positive and realistic relationship between children or young people and their family.
• To support contact between children or young people and their family, and to understand the long-term significance of this to the child or young person's sense of identity and emotional development - including practical things such as Mother's Day cards, transport and birthdays.
• To be aware of the significance of photographs and other memorabilia for the child or young person and their family, and to work on the life story book.
• To be constantly alert and sensitive to the feelings of families using home-based care.
• To be welcoming and non-intrusive, and to provide support and modelling rather than counselling.
• To be aware of one's own value judgments and the possible negative implications for the child or young person and their family.
• To be aware of the importance of confidentiality.
• To maintain regular contact with the community service organisation worker.
• To contact the community service organisation worker to seek permission from the Department of Human Services (satisfying departmental requirements) where it is planned that the child or young person will travel interstate.
• To inform the program where professional services are planned to be used for children or young people in care.
• To contact the community service organisation's after-hours worker if anaesthetic consent is required for a child or young person, in order to follow Department of Human Services' process. If the child or young person is in a voluntary placement, the parents' consent is required. The program manager may give consent in an emergency.
• To observe departmental instructions regarding children and young people's entitlement to contact or access. Foster carers should not limit or deny a child or young person contact with their family or friends where the contact is reasonable and beneficial.
• To work cooperatively with the program to implement the case plan objectives.
• To inform themselves of program policies - especially relating to care management, positive behaviour support (including safety), confidentiality, and the procedure for responding to complaints - and to operate within policy requirements.
