Ms Catherine Bond:

We have referred to the distinction regarding the private agencies. It is quite disappointing to hear about 12 year olds in residential care because we had moved away from that kind of care provision.

Senator Devine asked about relative care and the system to protect relative carers. Relative carers, like general foster carers, need to have link social workers and to have the same support structures around them. As we know, the dynamics of family relationships can be quite complex and if a foster carer is caring for his or her grandchildren, for example, a higher degree of protection is required within that relationship. Families need to be supported and homeless families need higher levels of support. Children growing up in homelessness is a real tragedy for our society. Families should not be fearful of having their children taken from them. We need to be supporting families with their own children.

On the issue of HIQA and the regulation of foster care, as EPIC has stated, this is positive and has contributed significantly to improvement of services, particularly for the most vulnerable in our society. However, regulation in itself does not improve all aspects of services. Foster care, given the complexities of the relationships involved, is based in relational dynamics and sometimes it is difficult to capture the quantum of what that looks like. However, recent Government policies including Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, the well being indicators for children, children's position within the Constitution and their participation in society should all be taken into account in the context of placing children in care. There is learning from the implementation of the pre-school regulations, which are now almost 20 years old. There were lots of teething problems with that because initially it was about regulating the infrastructure. However, when one is talking about children, one must focus on relational dynamics. One is actually talking about the quality of relationships and the same is true for foster care.