Time’s Up: We’re losing Foster Carers, and the system has failed children yet again.

The latest data on child protection, released this week by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, paints a clear and worrying picture, one that many in the sector have been warning about for some time now. Foster carers are leaving the system at alarming rates.

Since the 2022 data release, an additional 1,467 foster carer households have stepped away from this vital role by the 2024 data set, and the number of new carers entering isn’t keeping pace. And that’s a big problem.

Because when carers leave, kids miss out. The result? More children are being placed in residential care, as evidenced in the latest report, with an overall 22% growth in residential care placements, a modest 1.1% growth in Kinship Care, and a significant 9.3% contraction in Foster Care across Australia. This places more pressure on already stretched caseworkers and fewer stable homes for those who need them most.

This trend isn’t new, and it’s exactly what the Future of Foster Care campaign has been warning about. Since 2017, there has been an 88.4% increase in children entering residential care, a clear indication that our current system isn’t meeting expectations.

And it’s not just about more carers. It’s about making the system work better. That means supporting carers properly with training, support, and yes, fair pay. And looking at the bigger picture, the longer-term benefits of investing in what we know works to keep families together in the first place.

Early intervention programs, such as MST-CAN, FFT-CW, PCIT and SafeCare, help families stay together safely and reduce the need for children to enter care. Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations have long been denied the opportunity to draw on their deep knowledge and proven approaches to guide investment in what truly works for their communities.

These aren’t just nice ideas; they’re evidence-based models and thousands of years of cultural knowledge that are already making a difference in communities across Australia.

And professional models of care, like Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO), are giving children and young people the chance to return to stable family environments, often reuniting with their birth family after years of living in residential care homes. We need more of this.

In fact, of the 113 children and young people who have been through OzChild’s TFCO program, only 1% ever returned to residential care, and 53% are still living back with their family or community. The remainder are all living in family-based homes. These are the outcomes we should be striving for.

Queensland’s investment in a pilot Professional Care Model announced in this week’s budget, and the NSW Government’s $1.2 billion investment in out-of-home care, including a boost to carer payments and the recruitment of more caseworkers, are promising steps forward. But to fix the system for good, we need a full reset. That means long-term thinking:

1. An overhaul of mandated reporting and a shift to mandated support lets us move from a child protection to a child connection system.

2. Pay attention and invest in primary prevention and early interventions in the areas identified by the Australian Child Maltreatment Study.

3. Pay attention to the demographic changes in carers and note the support all carers need to care for our most vulnerable. This means a radical overhaul and introduction to professional care models that allow carers to open their hearts and homes and get compensated and supported to meet the children's needs.

4. Scaling up of TFCO so many more children and adolescents can benefit from its life-changing outcomes.

5. Introduce a ‘Gold Card’ for all children and young people entering out-of-home care, giving them immediate access to the medical, health, and educational support they need — because when the state steps in as their parent, it should act like one from day one, not leave the responsibility to already stretched foster or kinship carers.

In summary, what’s needed is genuine reform and meaningful investment — not just quick fixes when the system starts to sink.

Because every child deserves to grow up feeling safe, supported, and loved. And every carer who opens their heart and home deserves to be backed by a system that doesn’t just thank them but actually works for them.

Which government will boldly go first?