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Information from their website indicates that “Care Leavers
Australia Network (CLAN) is a support group for people brought up in care as
State Wards, Foster Children or Home children raised in Children's Homes,
orphanages or institutions. Or who has a close family member who was placed
in ‘care’.”
CLAN’s objectives are:
“· to provide a network through which people
from this background throughout Australia can communicate with each other and
share their experiences. We know that many people who grew up in 'care' feel
isolated and alone, believing the traumas of their childhood years were
somehow their own fault.
· to raise public consciousness of our past
situation and its effects, so that what happened to us as state wards and
Home children becomes as well-known as the experiences of the ‘stolen
generations’, child migrants and adoptees.
· to lobby governments in every state to
provide acknowledgment and support for former state wards and Home children,
for example through the appointment, in the Departments currently concerned
with children of personnel who have the sole responsibility of looking after
the needs of this older group of Care Leavers.
· to have support services set up which
include:
· mediation services to help people locate
lost family members and make contact with them;
· search services in all states specifically
targeted to former state wards and Home children to help locate family
members. Existing services are inadequate and do not acknowledge the needs of
this group of people;
· access to education and training for Care
Leavers who were prevented by their background from reaching their potential
(some Care Leavers from this earlier period left “care” unable even to read
and write);
· access to other life skills courses - such
as parenting courses. Many of us grew up with no role models and as
"parentless people" we have had little idea how to be parents
ourselves. Also, as we know from our own experience, having children often
raises painful unresolved issues from childhood, particularly around
abandonment and neglect;
· specialist counselling services to help
Care Leavers deal with these past issues.”
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