Country children in care: What are the experiences of children in care in the country and what would help them to flourish?

An output of a partnership between Uniting Country SA (UCSA) and the research team at the Centre for Social Impact, Flinders University. Australia’s record for child protection is appalling. Multiple high level inquiries have not, despite various system restructures, brought about substantial nor meaningful positive change to children’s lives. Australian population studies repeatedly tell us that children living in out-of-home care fare worse (e.g. wellbeing and educational outcomes) than the general population of children. Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing reports on child protection in Australia repeatedly find that children living in regional and remote contexts have the highest rates of child protection notification substantiations. Further, children living in the lowest socioeconomic areas are more likely to be subjects of substantiations. This project sought to contribute to policy and practice by advancing understanding of the experiences of children living in care in the country and to provide insights that may assist country community services support young people in out-of-home care flourish. We conducted interviews with young country people who experienced living in out-of-home care as children and with foster carers based in the country. We analysed our data against the literature to develop an ecological model of child protection from which we report our findings.