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Many people preclude themselves due to their circumstances. Fostering is about you and what you as a person can offer – we always can work around people’s circumstances. Not all our foster carers are available all the time, some only do very short term placements, others can only do weekends while others like to offer long-term care. The staff always work in with you and make sure that your situation fits around the needs of the young person.
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Fostering is a big ask for any individual, couple or family. Often foster carers say they had considered fostering for many months, even years before they came forward and applied to become foster carers. The decision to do this requires the agreement of the whole household because of the demands it places on all members. While this sounds daunting, the rewards many of our foster carers report outweighs the commitment and effort required. Successful foster carers are ordinary people within your community who have a desire to help others. They are able to be at ease with young people, offer them support when needed or just give them some space. If you enjoy young people and would like to help your community, then I challenge you to also consider fostering. There is nothing magical about fostering – it is ordinary people doing the extra-ordinary. While some of the young people have special needs due to their life experiences, they all just want to be seen and treated as any other teenager.
Our foster carers come from a variety of backgrounds and careers. We have foster carers who come from all walks of life, from single parents to an executive consultant trainer, from labourer to lawyer, from a grounds keeper to a receptionist. Never dismiss yourself as a potential foster carer because of your position or background.
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Foster carers do go through an exhaustive assessment process which also includes screening checks such as police record checks. However all applications are assessed on their merits and the Teenshare staff like to believe that our assessment process is a two way exercise. It is a chance for us to learn about you and at the same time you will learn about how it all works. Through this process we often come to a mutual understanding of whether fostering is suitable for you. The first is always to talk to all the members of the household and then approach a service like ours. Should you be interested, register yourself on this website on the Becoming a Carer page.
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The foster carer payment is treated as a subsidy for living expenses incurred and therefore is tax free. The subsidy is not considered income and therefore does not effect any Centrelink payment. In fact if a young person remains longer than two weeks, you may be eligible to claim the Tax Benefit (A and/or B) through Centrelink.
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For a young person attending school, the weekly payment is $157.50, and for a non school attender the weekly payment is $210 or pro rata, dependent upon the length of stay. These payments include pocket money and during the school holidays we increase this by another $20 per week.
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There are a number of different reasons why young people might steal and as many ways of dealing with the problem. A pattern may have been established in early childhood and will take a lot of time and patience to break. A young person may steal from the foster home to "test out" the foster parents, expecting to be kicked out and wanting to get the rejection over and done with quickly. There are psychological theories which suggest that abused children steal to gain attention or to fill an emotional void with material goods. Teenshare has insurance which covers anything of value which may be taken by a young person in your care.
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It is up to you, the foster carer, whether you allow smoking in your house or not. But it is helpful to be aware that there are sometimes reasons why young people smoke, eg. peer group pressure, genuine addiction to nicotine, coming from a family where smoking was regarded as normal. Old habits might take time to change.
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Teenshare acknowledges that despite all the preparation and planning this doesn’t always guarantee success. We often discover that personality mix doesn’t quite work, or the needs of the young person are not easily addressed by the foster family. In each instance we always attempt to work together to explore possible options and solutions and failing this we work towards creating other options for the young person.
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Keeping contact is important and we leave this to you – we ask foster carers to be mindful of not creating dependence. However, we can never underestimate the impact that you have had on the young person while in your care and so contact is important.
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The Teenshare staff always meet with you after a placement ends and discuss any issues that developed during the course of their stay. It gives the foster carer and the staff the opportunity to stand back and reflect on the placement. We always ask foster carers to be aware of their own needs and to look after themselves so that they can be the best people they can when the young person enters their home. Your decision to be available again is totally yours – some foster carers choose to have a break before they accept the next young person.
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That depends on the young persons circumstances – sometimes it is literally overnight, through to several weeks or even months. Again, the young person remains in your care until they can safely return home, or if this is not possible – until another long-term option becomes available. Some of our foster carers choose to become the long term foster carer because the young person fits into their family situation. Some of the young people in our service have now remained for several years. We do have many success stories.
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No, we always discuss the possibility of a young person coming to your household and we always inform you of all the details we have. Without exception the decision always rests with you. Therefore, if you feel uncomfortable or this just doesn’t seem right for your situation, we always respect your decision.
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You welcome them in, and give them the resource kit which Teenshare has developed. A stranger coming into a new household is difficult for everyone concerned. The kit tries to answer some of the many questions the young person may have and provides them with some guidance of who to approach. You, as foster carers, will have been assessed, trained and briefed on what to do. You will also have a manual, which you can refer to, and you can also contact the Teenshare staff. But remember, before a young person arrives, we will have already spoken to you about the young person and you will have had the opportunity to raise any questions you have and most importantly, you would have agreed to accept the young person into your household.
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Teenshare is a 24hr crisis/short-term/long-term foster care service for young people between the ages of 12-17.
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As we are a twenty four hour service, staff are always available by telephone. When you have a young person in your household, we maintain weekly contact and that could involve a home visit, a telephone call or e-mail. We work with you, as it is our responsibility to support you, the foster carer in your role of providing the care to the young person.
Teenshare also organises regular get togethers with other foster carers such as coffee mornings, lunch meetings, or even wine and cheese nights. These are great opportunities to share with other foster carers both formally and informally.
Teenshare also support and encourage foster carers to attend formal training. At times we also deliver training modules dependent upon the need.
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Drugs do have a place in our society. But there is a difference between using and abusing a drug. A rule of thumb to distinguish between the two could be as follows: use of a drug does not interfere with the a person's physical and psychological coping behaviour, whereas abuse does. When one talks about the most commonly used drugs, the distinction between use and abuse would depend on the person's perception of the drug, its effects and the role the drug plays in his or her life, ie. the distinction would have to be determined for each individual and general concepts might be inapplicable. It is important to remember and realise that the majority of drugs abused are legal ones (ie. alcohol, nicotine, analgesics, etc.) rather than illegal ones. Generally young people who come into the Teenshare program will not be using illegal drugs regularly and if they have used, it has been for experimentation.
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Many teenagers who come into foster care have a poor background in schooling because:
a) natural parents may not have taken an interest
b) they may have moved around a lot and changed schools often
c) emotional trauma may have affected their school work
Because of this background, some teenagers might hate school and want to leave as soon as possible. It may be a struggle to get them to finish even their Year 10 Certificate. It will take time for them to accept your interest and encouragement and the awareness that they have the potential to gain something positive from school.
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The main reason that young people come to our program is due to conflict at home – this conflict has often been long standing and is precipitated by some event or crisis. Other reasons are that a young person is at risk of abuse or they may have already suffered abuse and are not able to live safely at home. Despite the circumstances and situations that these young people have, they all want the safety and security of living in a family situation.
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The young people who come to our service are usually okay about living in a family environment and understand the expectations upon them. The young people usually have come from a home environment. In all instances, the Department for Community Development are involved and each young person has a case manger from the department who is responsible for planning and working with the young person and/or their family to make future decisions.
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