What's the Answer? - Create

Case Study 4: A Mental Well-being PerspectiveBackgroundTania is a 20 year old female living in Queensland who entered foster care when she was two yearsold due to neglect and left when she was 18 years old. When Tania was 14 years old, she startedseeing a counsellor – she wasn’t given options of who she could see, just who was available. Taniabelieves that she would be worse off without counselling and the help provided as her mental healthwasn’t the best and sometimes she thought about escaping from it all. She believes that if she didn’thave the counsellor – who was often the most stable person in her life – she wouldn’t be alive today.Solutions for governmentTania’s suggested action for all governments to better support young people transitioning from careis that all children and young people in care have access to free counselling. She stated that:As a child or young person in care, you don’t really get help unless you ask, or scream for it. But a youngperson isn’t always going to know that counselling may help, or say that they need it. They need to beable to access counselling without feeling ashamed. This support needs to be thought of as long-term, notsomething that can fix things in a few weeks or months and it shouldn’t stop just because you turn 18 andthe community thinks you have become an adult. If you stop counselling it’s very hard to pick up againbecause you have to find a therapist, somehow find the money for it and start again. You have to shareyour story all over again.Case Study 5: A Youth Justice PerspectiveBackgroundToby is a 20 year old Aboriginal male who is married and lives with his wife and son in Victoria. Hewas involved with the Youth Justice system when he was 15 years old. In that time he had at leastsixty charges brought against him including assault, theft of a motor vehicle, possession of stolengoods, possession of weapons, possession of drugs, and criminal damage.When he was eight years old, Toby entered foster care as a result of violent behaviour towards hissiblings. When he was 10 years old he was reunified with his family before returning to high riskresidential placements at the age of 15 years.Upon transitioning from care, he was given very little notice about needing to vacate the residentialfacility, and became homeless for six months, before living with his grandparents, and then his wife.He now goes to church regularly, and wants to use his experiences to help others through writing abook using voice recognition software (he is illiterate having only completed Grade five).Leaving care planningWorkers had spoken to Toby about needing to leave care at that age of 18 years, but he thought thathe wouldn’t have to leave if he didn’t have stable accommodation to transition to. He was given verylimited options within his planning for leaving care – he was told that he would have to live withsomeone else with a similar background to his. However, as he did not want to be around negativeinfluences, he refused this accommodation option, which left him homeless for six months.36