Claire Robbs, Chief Executive of Life Without Barriers joins Catherine Liddle, CEO of SNAICC to let us know about their exciting and timely partnership at #THRIVE2021 this week.
Shining a spotlight on permanency and issues affecting young people in care so they can thrive in their childhoods and into their futures, was a key theme of this year’s #THRIVE2021 Virtual National Permanency Conference on 13-14 October.
From Life Without Barriers, both Claire Robbs, Chief Executive and Chris Skinner, Manager Practice Advancement & Implementation - MOCKINGBIRD FAMILY™ StrIDE Team, joined a stellar line-up of speakers who were all focussed on how to improve the lives of 46,000 children and young people currently in care in Australia.
Claire spoke in the plenary session on Community led child welfare alongside Catherine Liddle, CEO of SNAICC, which is the national non-governmental peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. They both addressed the need to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander decision-making when it comes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
Their presentation focused on the recent historic partnership both organisations announced, whereby Life Without Barriers would transfer its out-of-home care services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-control within 10 years.
“As we observe the distressing rates of Aboriginal children entering care, our organisation and Board are clear that we must make this commitment to children and their families if we are ever to realise giant steps towards Reconciliation,” said Claire in announcing the SNAICC partnership.
During Claire’s breakout session on Driving better placement matches, Claire, and Dr Melissa Kaltner and Mark Galvin from EY, led a discussion on a research program both organisations have been driving, looking at placement decision-making in NSW. When children enter out-of-home care, placement decision making often occurs in the midst of time pressure. In many jurisdictions, placement decisions are sometimes made with minimal information on children and available carer households to support these decisions.
Chris Skinner gave an overview of the MOCKINGBIRD FAMILY™ in his session on Nationally supporting carers of children. Chris talked about how the model connects carers, children and their families together in a community. In turn this creates greater support which leads to better outcomes for all involved.
