Children and young people who cannot live safely with their parents require different kinds of care arrangements depending on their individual needs. Residential care is designed for teenagers whose needs mean they are unable to be in a home-based care type, including living with their relatives, kinship carers or foster carers.
In July 2023, the Queensland Government announced a review of Queensland’s residential care system. The review responds to the community’s, sector’s, and QFCC’s concerns about the increasing number of children and infants in this type of care and their life outcomes.
The Department of Child Safety, Seniors and Disability Services led the review, which informed its Residential Care Roadmap released in February 2024. The roadmap includes 31 actions to improve outcomes for young Queenslanders.
QFCC Principal Commissioner Luke Twyford was asked to provide independent oversight and advice on the review and the five-year implementation of the roadmap.
Our first assessment of the roadmap’s implementation is included below.
QFCC’s assessment of the Residential Care Roadmap
Our first assessment of the roadmap’s implementation is included below.
The assessment was informed by extensive engagement across Queensland with child safety and frontline workers and with children living in residential care.
It found the roadmap has not achieved its intended objectives to reform the residential care system, reduce the number of children living in residential care, and improve the standard of care provided to children.
It recommends revisiting the roadmap and building on the actions to improve residential care.
Too often, we forget or fail to acknowledge that young people in care are indisputably the experts of the Child Safety system.
As part of our role in overseeing the Queensland Review of Residential Care, we sponsored a forum to hear from young people with lived experience of residential care. The report, I was raised by a checklist, was developed to share the information gathered.
The below two reports summarise the outcomes of workshops we held with children in residential care. These outcomes informed our report, ‘Too Little, Too Late’.
We are sincerely grateful for the children’s honest views and insights, and to Life Without Barriers and Create Foundation for partnering with us to host the workshops.