When Jaime Ramos first signed up to care full time for an eight-year-old boy, the child was being sent home up to three times a week for assaulting teachers at school.
The boy has a history of trauma, and was removed from his family and placed into Victoria's foster care system.
Within three weeks of living in Mr Ramos's home, the assaults stopped and the boy has not been involved in any incidents at school in the three months since.
"He has stability, a great support network around him, and he feels safe," Mr Ramos says.
"He's able to relax and get on with being a kid."
Mr Ramos believes the dramatic turnaround in the boy's behaviour is because of the specialised model of foster care he is part of.
Turning lives around
Mr Ramos is one of seven foster carers in Victoria paid a $75,000 wage and offered 24-hour support through the Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO) program.
The program, initially developed in the United States, has been operated by foster care agency OzChild for five years with ongoing Victorian government funding.
It is currently the only professional model of foster care in Victoria.
All other foster carers in the state are volunteers and are paid a smaller reimbursement intended to cover basic costs.
Mr Ramos says he has worked in the welfare industry for 20 years and rejected the opportunity to become a foster carer many times before the TFCO option came along.
He says he saw TFCO as a step away from a foster system constantly operating in "crisis" mode.
"I've been able to feel that I'm actually making a really significant difference in the lives of children," he says.
Under TFCO, there is a set plan and a large team working towards the goal of giving children social and behavioural skills to thrive in their next home with another long-term volunteer foster carer or their families.
"It boggles my mind why the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing doesn't invest in an amazing program like this and expand it," Mr Ramos says.
Workers say the program is succeeding in keeping children with challenging behaviours out of residential care involving group homes with rotating staff where many children end up as a last resort.
Under TFCO, children are instead provided intensive support in a home-based setting with a constant carer and support team for nine to 12 months.
The children's set plan of care includes routine, positive reinforcement, pro-social activities such as sport, and a behaviour-modification program based on age-appropriate rewards.
A system in 'dire' need
On any given day there are about 1,600 children and young people in foster-care placements in Victoria and about 470 children in residential care.
The number of children in out-of-home care in Victoria is increasing while the number of foster carers is decreasing, according to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data.
There were 1,500 more children in residential, kinship, and foster care in 2021 compared with 2018 — a 14 per cent increase — while the number of active carers recorded dropped by 24.
The number of new carers coming into the system is decreasing too with an 18 per cent drop in carers being accredited in 2022.
James Stubbs, Victoria's northern region director with foster care agency Berry Street, says the current situation in the foster care system is "dire".
He says a lack of carers means children and young people are separated from their siblings, bounced around emergency placements, staying in hotels with workers, and ending up in residential care younger.
"There's a lot of young people that require ongoing stability, ongoing support, and need something that lasts a longer period of time," Mr Stubbs says.
"That's where I could see a benefit from a professional foster care model."
The Victorian Department of Families, Fairness and Housing said in a statement that the state had the lowest rate of children in care in Australia.
A spokesperson said kinship care, involving placements with relatives or people known to the child, made up 75 per cent of placements.
Calls for reform
OzChild is asking the Victorian government to provide funding to expand the TFCO program, with a goal to have a team of carers in eight different areas of the state, including the regions, to meet rising need.
TFCO currently only operates in Melbourne.
OzChild director services and practice Michelle Van Doorn says the organisation is ready to expand, with four additional carers approved, accredited and trained, but no government funding to get them caring.
She says the cost benefits of the program are a no-brainer.
"The cost for eight teams of TFCO across Victoria would be $52 million over four years, but it would reach over 200 children and young people," she says.
"The investment will generate immediate savings of $13 million through placements in TFCO rather than residential care."
The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, a peak body for child and family services, is supporting OzChild's call for the state government to fund an expansion of the TFCO program.
The organisation's chief executive Deb Tsorbaris says, more broadly, she wants funding for a total system reform and new models of professional foster care.
"There has not been the sort of investment in foster care I would have liked to have seen over the past eight years," she says.
"We need more resources dedicated to the children and the carers before they need it, not when it's reached a crisis point."
The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing did not answer questions about whether it would fund an expansion to the TFCO program or other professional foster care models.
Agencies driving change
One foster care agency in Ballarat wants funding to trial a professional model of foster care too.
Independent community service organisation Cafs (child and family services) has been upskilling its foster carers in a new therapeutic care model called Trust-Based Relational Intervention, focusing on the healing process for children with complex trauma.
Susie Meadows, the organisation's team leader of foster care recruitment, says paying some foster carers a wage would give them the time and energy to implement the new techniques they were learning.
"Carers get frustrated that they have the desire and the eagerness to meet the child's needs so they can heal and flourish, but we don't set them up for success," she says.
There are other benefits to paid foster caring too, Ms Meadows says.
"If people are being paid to do the job, you can have higher expectations of them," she says.
"A lot of volunteer carers feel they could do a better job if they didn't have to balance a full-time or part-time job and caring for these complex kids.
"These children deserve better … having some paid foster carers will make a big difference."
The Victorian Department of Families, Fairness and Housing says it has invested $2.89 billion into the children and families' system as part of its Roadmap for Reform.
A spokesperson says phone support, counselling services and a help-desk service to navigate support are available for all foster carers.
