What's the Answer? - Create

Table 1: Projected Costs to Commonwealth for Providing 50% Subsidy to States / Territories for the Provisionof Specialist Transition from Care WorkersSTATE YP TFC 2008-9 YP TFC % No. of Workers 50% Cost(based on salarypackage of $67,200)NSW 967 40 172 $5,789,276VIC 568 23 101 $3,400,526QLD 491 20 87 $2,939,539WA 141 6 25 $844,145SA 149 6 27 $892,039TAS 56 2 10 $335,263ACT 34 1 6 $203,553NT 26 1 5 $155,658Total 2432 100 433 $14,560,000Specialist TFC workers would be responsible for monitoring the outcomes achieved by care leavers intheir region. This would require workers keeping in touch with young people and having a record oftheir contact details. This is not done consistently at present. CREATE has worked on many projectsin partnership with child safety departments in which it was necessary to make contact with youngpeople to send them information; unfortunately, often this was not possible because young peoplecould not be located (in some cases this applies even to those still in care).Another essential function TFC workers would serve is to review young peoples’ progress, identifytheir current support needs, and in consultation with the young people, review and modify existingplans and proposals. Such reassessment is deemed necessary due to the statements by care leaversin the CREATE Report Card that most of the important issues in their lives, such as those mentionedabove, were either not covered in their initial leaving-care plan, or the proposed actions were of littleor no value in supporting their transition.As well as ensuring that particular departmental workers are assigned responsibility for maintaining“official” contact with care leavers over the proposed seven-year transitioning period (18 to 25years), it also would be important to establish mentoring relationships between the young peopleand community members to provide a continuous support base for care leavers as they movetowards independence. CREATE’s Report Card cited the Victorian tripartite model (Mentoring, Aftercareservices, and Brokerage funding) as one worthy of emulation throughout Australia since it dealswith the essential layers of support needed by those transitioning from care.ConclusionThe issues discussed above and the key general solutions proposed make the point that inaction inproviding adequate initial support for care leavers will result in significant costs to government nowand in the future. As McDowall (2008) observed, making programs available at the time of transition“would minimize the need for…later interventions and would result in considerable economic savingsand generate better outcomes for the young people” (p. 18).9