Ngaliya - Permanency Support Program

Through our Permanency Support Program (Ngaliya), Yerin is committed to supporting Aboriginal children and young people who are unable to live with their parents. This program aims to support families as well as provide support and healing for those who have been adversely affected. Our practices are informed by an understanding of personal and intergenerational trauma and seeks to holistically address individual and community needs from a culturally responsive framework.

Yerin seeks to keep families together and preserve culture. We believe that community and cultural connection is an essential part of remediating past and current struggles and for building strong and positive futures for Aboriginal children, young people and their families. We know that past government and social policies and practices have contributed to an over-representation of Aboriginal children, young people and families in welfare and state care-reliant programs. The lived experience of the Stolen Generations is reverberating for us, and we strive to not let history be repeated.

Providing culturally responsive care arrangements

Respite

Typically, a respite placement is between 2 and 28 days. A child or young person may need a carer for one weekend or during school holidays. It is designed to assist in supporting full-time carers.

Short to Medium Term

Short to medium term care can range from caring for a child or young person overnight, to up to a year. After this period of time, the child or young person may return back to living with their family, kinship or move into a long-term care arrangement.

This type of care can be required because of family emergency or crisis where families have voluntarily sought assistance, however, the most common reason is due to Family and Community Services (FACS) intervention; a child/young person is removed from their parents care due to ongoing safety and wellbeing of the child/young person that has been compromised.

Long Term

Long term care is provided to children who can no longer live with their birth parents and FACS has assessed all family options and feel that it is in the best interest of the child to remain in care up until the age of 18. At any stage throughout the long term order, a birth parent can take the matter back to court if they can demonstrate they have the capacity to commence caring for their child again.

Why we need Aboriginal carers

For Aboriginal people, adoption and guardianship remain culturally contentious for most permanency decisions for Aboriginal children and young people. Yerin supports the AbSec Statement on Guardianship orders for Aboriginal children and young people.

It is recognised that fostering has become increasingly demanding and complex. Yerin is committed to providing high quality training and support for foster carers and view training as mandatory.

We are always looking for Aboriginal foster carers, for our children and young people (Gudjagangs). When we don’t have enough good Aboriginal carers, our children and young people are placed with carers from other backgrounds.

We are looking for foster carers who:

are dedicated to maintaining and supporting children and young people’s connections to country, community, family and culture;
have deep understanding that looking after and guiding children from another family is different from looking after your own children;
genuinely like and enjoy children and young people and can remain enthusiastic about them, even when times get tough or they’re being difficult;
appreciate and acknowledge that fostering will have an impact on your own children and wider family;
do not expect children to be grateful for the care you show or demonstrate through your actions;
can understand that a child may lie, steal or display sexualised behaviour;
can accept that a fostered child or young person may take some time to adjust and respond to the care you offer and;
understand that trauma experienced by children and young people is why they behave certain ways that are sometimes difficult to understand.

If you’re interested in becoming a foster carer for Yerin, please call 02 4351 1040 or email yerinOOHC@yerin.org.au

How we support our carers

Yerin values the work foster carers do and the unconditional contribution they make to the lives of the children and young people in their care. It is of paramount importance that appropriate support for the families who foster is provided, and our care team will work hard to maximise these supports.

As a Yerin carer, you will be linked with one caseworker who will work alongside you on any given placement. The caseworker will work in partnership with you to ensure that the child/young person’s needs are met whilst in your care and that you are supported to carry out the day-to-day requirements.

The focus of Yerin’s practice is to support families to prevent children and young people entering care and where this is not possible, to work to restore children and young people to their families. Where longer-term care is needed, Yerin will work to identify the best possible outcomes in line with the Aboriginal Placement Principles and Permanent Placement Principles that support children and young people being connected to family, community, culture and country.

Ngaliya – Permanency Support Program