“Help us find stable, loving homes for any child who needs one, and provide support for those that do.”
“Help us find stable, loving homes for any child who needs one, and provide support for those that do.”
Welcome to Fostering Hope Tasmania
We are an Australian, community organisation whose work comes from the Bible and the teachings of Jesus to ‘visit’ and ‘care for’ orphans and widows, to put the lonely in families, to love the fatherless, to care for children, and to love their neighbours in the communities.
We currently have a foster care crisis in Australia with not enough families for every child who needs one and carers and workers leaving their roles faster than they can be replaced. Fostering Hope is fixing this problem by equipping the church to be the answer by,
- Recruiting, preparing, and journeying with new carer families
- Supporting current carer families
- Finding mentors for children and young people growing up in care
- Supporting those working in the system
- Increasing understanding about the impacts of unsafe beginnings in the community so we can create more and more safe places for children and young people
- Working nationally on the Foster Care Sunday initiative
Helping churches support children and young people growing up in out of home care and those around them.
What is fostering and why is there such a need?
For most of us, childhood was a time of fun, growing, learning, and dreaming about our future. We were protected from adult problems and could enter adulthood with hope and excitement. For some children in Australia, this isn’t the case. Some families are unable to protect their children and unable to provide the care they need to grow.
In each state and territory child protection or out of home care legislation protects childhood and enshrines rights for all children based on the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
If children are in homes at risk or receiving abuse or neglect, the Government steps in, first to work with the families of birth and then, if needed, children are removed for their safety.
Children currently in
out of home care
All of Australia
Tasmania
Children currently in out of home care
All of Australia
Tasmania
What is a foster carer?
There are different categories of carers. Foster carers are people who choose to step forward and become carers for children if they are removed. Kinship carers are known to a child before they are removed, and informal carers are usually family members who take on raising a child for a short time or long time without the intervention of the Government.
Why is there such a need for fostering? For multiple, complicated, and layered reasons – it may be generational, it may be addiction, it may be mental health, it may be job loss and stress, it may be domestic abuse – often it is multiple reasons. Whatever the reason, the parents need support and the children need a childhood, healing, and hope.
Fostering Hope is responding to the need in the community to find more foster and kinship carers. To reach out and find families for all children who need them. To find homes that are healing, homes that are hopeful and respectful of birth families.
Ways to get Involved
I have been working alongside Mary and Fostering Hope since I started this role in November 2019. The Fostering Hope team is a wealth of knowledge and have a clear passion for supporting Tasmanian Carers and Foster Children. I have received positive feedback from carers who find the addition supports and connections with other Fostering Hope participants very helpful. Mary and the team are such supportive advocates for positive changes in the Out Of Home Care (OOHC) space in Tasmania.
As Mission Director of Tasmanian Baptists, I know I speak for our whole movement when I commend the ministry of Fostering Hope.
The work of Fostering Hope in recruiting and supporting those involved in the care –the children and the carers, the birth parents and those working in child safety services, is life changing. As a union of churches across the State we are delighted to be in partnership with Mary Blake and her team as they seek to help church communities understand the needs of children in care, and their encouragement to churches to help meet the need for more foster and kinship carers.
Without hesitation we support Fostering Hope and the work they do on behalf of children and their carers across our State.
