Children and young people are usually placed with out-of-home care when they cannot live with their families.
Out-of-home Care Services look after children and young people when:
- A family needs support
- In cases of family conflict
- If there is a significant risk of harm or abuse in the family home.
Strong carers, stronger children
The department launched Victoria’s strategy to support kinship, foster and permanent carers in October 2019 to drive improved outcomes for children and young people in care. Victoria’s kinship, foster and permanent carers provide essential support to our most vulnerable children and young people and are a fundamental part of the child and families service system. For more information, see Strong carers, stronger children.
Worker and Carer Exclusion Scheme
The Worker and Carer Exclusion Scheme started on 1 July 2024. Before engaging with a worker or carer for the first time, service providers must ask the Social Services Regulator to check if the person is on the excluded worker and carer database.
For more information, visit the Worker and Carer Exclusion Scheme page of the Social Services Regulator website.
Permanent care
Permanent care provides enduring family placements for children unable to live with their natural families.
This includes children placed in permanent care after a period of child protection intervention, when they cannot be returned safely to their parents care
Out-of-home support services
Out-of-home support services help children and young people, who have been referred to this service, cope with their experiences. They also assist their families to deal with the issues that led to the placement of their child in an out-of-home service.
Kinship care
Kinship care is the care provided by relatives or a member of a child's social network when a child cannot live with their parents.
Aboriginal kinship care is care provided by relatives or friends to an Aboriginal child who cannot live with their parents, where Aboriginal family and community and Aboriginal culture are valued as central to the child’s safety, stability and development. The Aboriginal kinship services are operating in every region of the state.
For more information, see Kinship care.
Looking After Children (LAC) in practice
In Victoria, LAC provides the practice framework for considering how each child's needs will be met, while that child is in out-of-home care. It is used for managing out-of-home care in accordance with the Best Interests Case Practice Model cycle of information gathering, assessment, planning, implementation and review.
The service provider managing the placement, or kinship placement support is responsible for coordinating the LAC processes and completing the LAC records with the other care team members and the child.
For more information, see the Child Protection Manual.
Out-of-home Care Charter
This charter has been especially prepared for children who can't live with their parents and are in out-of-home care. It lists what you can expect from the people who look after you and work with you when you are in care. For more information, see the Charter for Children in Out-of-home Care.
Obtaining Medicare Cards for children in out-of-home care
The Commonwealth government funds many health services where access and reimbursement of costs requires presentation of a valid Medicare Card (or a valid Medicare number). It is therefore important that when a child is placed in out-of-home care their parent or guardian provide the child's Medicare card or Medicare number.