HARD-working child rights campaigner Karol Battams believes it’s every child’s right to be emotionally and physically safe.
But there are thousands of children who are unable to remain living in their family households due to unsuitable or unsafe conditions.
Ms Battams is acting services manager at Foundations Care and has worked in the community sector for close to 25 years. She supports foster carers, and the children who are placed with them.
“I certainly believe that every child in any community has the right to be safe,” Ms Battams said.
“And they should be provided the love, the care, the support, the nurture, the boundaries, all of those sorts of things, so that they can grow up to be the people that they want to be and get to be where they want to be.
“We have amazing staff who work on the frontline, who do super work with the carers and the kids.
“Many of the kids that come to us can come to us with developmental delay, experiencing the impact of trauma, abuse and neglect, so we work to just make sure that the carers are scaled up and supported enough to be able to manage that.”
Ms Battams says Foundations Care sees a diverse range of carers which is always needed.
“It doesn’t matter what the community is, there will always be a need for extra help and assistance,” she said.
“We need more foster carers, we need more people that want to help these kids.
“Some people are older, some people are younger, and are from a range of different backgrounds; we have people who are culturally and linguistically diverse, and we obviously have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers.
“And they are volunteers, that’s something we need to acknowledge; they don’t get paid to do this work.”
According to child safety data released earlier this year, Covid impacted many families, with the number of children requiring care rising steadily up to 10,828 as at 31 December 2020, compared to 10,698 as at 30 September 2020 and 10,021 as at 31 December 2019.
The number of foster and kinship carers also increased to 5792 families compared to 5680 as at 30 September 2020 and 5512 a year ago.
This includes 1655 first-time carer families who are helping to care for Queensland children when they can no longer remain safely at home.
Ms Battams, who is a stepmother herself, says it is a privilege to do the work she does.
“Working with children is an incredible privilege and I feel very honoured to do that,” she said.
“And for young people to trust you is something that’s very hard to put a tangible feeling around.
“It’s just nice, whether you’re working in foster care, or just in general youth work, or just being a parent, to watch your child or the kids that you know and love, grow up a bit and spread their wings, and they learn new things.
“It can be incredibly rewarding.”
