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Mirror families: Creating extended families for life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Claire Brunner  and
Cas O'Neill
Claire Brunner
Affiliation:
Donkey Wheel Charitable Trust, Foster carer and kinship carer, Film maker and youth facilitator, Email: clairebrunner@optusnet.com.au
Cas O'Neill
Affiliation:
Alfred Felton Research Program, University of Melbourne, Secretary, Post Placement Support Service (Vic) Inc. Email: oneillcas@gmail.com
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Abstract

Foster care is in crisis in most western countries, including Australia. Increasing numbers of children are being placed in out-of-home care at a younger age due to arange of issues, including parental substance abuse.

Mirror Families is an early intervention model which seeks to address the underlying causes of the foster care crisis. It supports positive, lifelong outcomes for vulnerable children and young people who are at risk of being placed outside their birth families or who are already in kinship, foster and permanent care.

This paper focuses on how a ‘village’, or extended family, can be created for each child so that lifelong (and beyond) supportive relationships can be established and nurtured. The key question which informs the model is: ‘Who will be therefor the grandchildren?’

Type
Research Article
Information
Children Australia , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , 2009 , pp. 6 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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