In 1974, three Group Homes were established
by the Department “for children who need a more specialised type of family care
than can be provided in a normal foster home or boarding placement. The children placed in these facilities are
not necessarily problem children, but because of their circumstances they would
find it difficult to settle into a private family. The Departmental group home can provide a
skilled and stabilising environment as a stepping stone to future return home
or foster placement.” Annual Report
of the Department for Community Welfare, June 30th 1974.
By 1979, the Group Home model had become
embedded practice – and two types of Group Homes were in operation:
Scattered
Family Group Homes comprised “those whose grounds
do not adjoin those of other family group homes, or other residential child
care establishments, operated by the same enterprise”; and
Clustered
Family Group Homes, which were those “facilities
whose grounds adjoin those of other family group homes, or other residential
child care establishments operated by the same enterprise.” Annual Report of the Department for
Community Welfare, June 30th 1979.
In the 1980’s it became obvious that the
standards of care and quality of facilities provided in Group Homes were by no
means uniform, as noted in the Annual Report of 1981:
“Group Homes
provide a small but important part of the Department’s service to children who
need care away from home. Some Group
Homes are privately owned and others are contract homes within the
Department. It has been of increasing
concern that there have been discrepancies between the conditions under which
all the homes have operated. A review of
the Group Homes is taking place and it is hoped that clear guidelines and
policy will be developed as a result of this review.” Annual Report of the Department for
Community Welfare, June 30th 1981.
In March 1984, the Department established a
policy development committee to develop a clear policy for Group Homes. The Consultative Committee on Residential
Child Care was involved in this process and endorsed the policy submission as
being “consistent with the practice in the non-government sector” and that the
CCRCC’s involvement had recognised “that group homes are the stock-in-trade of
the residential child care agencies and that this experience and knowledge was
relevant to [the] policy review.” The
need to provide services that were delivered to a particular standard and
appropriate to the children’s needs was also emphasised: “A child centred focus in group homes which
is advocated in the [policy submission] is advanced when professional staff are
employed with a primary responsibility to closely monitor and support the care
giver’s performance. Once again this is
a strength of the residential agencies” Report
on the Activities of the Consultative Committee in 1983/84, November 1984.
By 1985, Group Homes were reported under the
heading “Residential Child Care” in the Annual Report, as this was the
predominant ‘welfare-based’ model of collective residential care in which the
Department was involved, now that the Institutional Services had devolved to a
Community Support Hostel model and the Department no longer operated any
campuses except for the secure facilities of Nyandi, Riverbank and Longmore.
In 1985, there were nine Group Homes
throughout the State which were maintained by the Department to provide for
“emergency, short or long term placement of children as a viable alternative to
foster care”. Each Home could take 6 to
8 children, was operated by trained staff and had live-in “parents”. The referral mechanisms and the way in which
children were cared for in these facilities had been under review for some time
and would continue to be monitored. Non-Government
Agencies were also involved in the provision of residential care in Group Homes
– “some being in the form of campus cottages and others simply suburban
homes.” The past twelve months had seen
“a number of innovative developments” in the way these homes were run and
managed, with a renewed emphasis on “moving children back quickly to the family
environment”, with Group Home staff being “redirected to provide assistance in
the form of family support and counselling.”
The overall responsibility for Group Homes resided with the Out of Home
Care Project, part of the Substitute Care Programme. Annual Report of the Department for
Community Services, June 30th 1985.
In 1987,
the Department had undertaken a “reassessment” of the role of its Group Homes and
concluded that this service had the capacity “to accommodate a wide variety of
care needs. The demand to develop this
potential is increasing as the limitations of the capacity for foster care to
cope with difficult and older children is recognised.” Annual Report of the Department for
Community Services, June 30th 1987.
In its
submission to the inter-Departmental Planning Review Taskforce in 1987, the
Department described the current operation of its Group Homes:
“Caregivers in group homes comprise one
couple who live-in, ideally caring for up to eight children. Generally, the husband continues in his
existing employment, with the wife paid either an honorarium or wage. Group homes operate on a model where
substitute care is provided until changes in the circumstances of the child’s
original caregivers permit their return home.
In some instances a child may move on to other carers on a more
permanent basis (as in adoption) or with older youth to semi-independent
accommodation. Departmental group homes
are supervised at the local divisional level.
Group care services provided through the non-government sector fall
under the mandate of the Consultative Committee on Residential Child Care, and
provide cottage care via salaried child care worker staff. The contemporary trend towards community
based group care services for children is resulting in the closure of
institutionalized settings and campus-based residential facilities.” Submission of the Department for
Community Services to the Residential Planning Review Taskforce, March 31st 1987.
The Group Home model continued as one of the Department’s operational
models and was outlined as part of the Department for Community Development’s
Out of Home and Alternative Care (OHAC) Cost Project’s “New Directions in Child
Protection Work and Alternative Models for Residential Care” report in
1995. Group Homes arose from a Family
Treatment approach to residential care – an approach which
“emphasises
therapeutic intervention, and less provision of concrete and support
services. The theoretical base for
treatment is…family systems theory, and has three stages: assessment, treatment, and termination. It tends to be less intensive, may be either
home or office based, and last on average for 90 days. Therapists carry caseloads of 11.”
All therapy in the Department’s Group Homes was provided by
professional officers. (OHAC Cost Project, Department for Community
Services, June 1995).