By Mikayla van Loon
Gratitude and thanks filled the main dining room at Sky High last week as Anchor hosted an appreciation dinner for all the foster and kinship carers currently supporting young people.
Over 100 carers joined staff on the evening of Thursday 22 February, with Anchor chief executive officer Heidi Tucker acknowledging that “a lot of your hard work goes unseen”.
“You give your time, your resources, your space. You make room within your own families, and spend a great deal of emotional and physical energy doing what you do every day,” she said.
“It is our absolute honour as an organisation to support you in your carer work, because we know you do such an amazing job.”
Heidi said since she joined Anchor in 2015 she has seen the kinship offering “almost quadruple in size” particularly as child protection has required more foster opportunities for young people.
But so too while there have been positive changes, Heidi said the pandemic brought with it challenges as people reassessed their lives.
“The Covid pandemic and the lockdowns that followed created a seismic shift in how people prioritise their time and their home life,” she said.
“And in the years that have followed, the rising cost of living has impacted the way families make big decisions about their lives.
“For foster care, this has meant a lot of carers choosing to exit the system and a far lower rate of new carers coming into the system.”
This is especially true for younger foster carers, Heidi said, creating somewhat of a crisis, as young people struggle through living pressures of their own, making them unable to add the needs of a child to their lives.
For one young married couple, Liam and Sarah, growing up around Sarah’s parents who fostered children, Liam said helped them to understand “we didn’t need to be able to commit to long term placements”.
“We became involved in foster care because we understood the need for support for young people in out of home care and saw emergency and respite foster care as a way we could offer this support,” Liam said.
Respite care, Liam said, goes a long way to “ease the pressure on families and carers and provide better support for young people”.
Knowing how much need is out there and hearing the stories of “young people facing such challenging circumstances” is saddening for Liam and Sarah.
Despite it sometimes being challenging, Liam and Sarah said it is “very fulfilling” and being able to share just some of the privileges they have been afforded in life to create such a difference is someone else’s future.
“We see that with sufficient support and care, young people are able to flourish, families are able to build resilience and strength and communities can come together for the best futures for our next generation.
“Being involved in the lives of young people is encouraging and joyful, although challenging at times. We find immense value in how small change to our life can offer such a meaningful contribution to the broader community and impact a young person in any small or big way.”
As foster care faces the obstacle of shortages, Heidi said the future is relatively uncertain but seeing everyone in the room on Thursday brought her great comfort.
“I am reminded of the incredible strength and dedication that you demonstrate day in, day out,” she said.
“I can’t help but feel confident that wherever the system lands, there will always be people like yourselves who are willing to stand up and say ‘I care. I want to fight for our most vulnerable children to be safe’.”
For Liam and Sarah, were grateful to have been able to share space and conversation with other foster and kinship carers, to feel the support of Anchor’s staff and know their contribution was being recognised.
“It was wonderful to see so many carers in one place and to see carers who have given so much time and investment being recognised for their efforts.
“We enjoyed seeing the wealth of experience in the care team behind the young people in foster care and feeling like we could contribute to that in some small way.”
