St. Luke's

Services offered by St Luke's Anglicare

Children and Family Services

Click on the links above to view the various Children and Family Services offered by St Lukes Anglicare.

Placements

St Luke's will always attempt to provide the best possible placement to achieve the families goals. Because careful matching of children with Caregiving Families is critical, people requesting a placement need to discuss their needs with a St Luke's request worker before filling in a request form.

Home Based Care Placements - Foster Care

Children and young people are accommodated in private homes. Caregivers are volunteers and receive a small allowance to cover costs. Placements cater for single children or sometimes small sibling groups.

As the care is provided in private homes and by people who often have children of their own, and nearly always have a range of commitments as well as providing care for children, children with very difficult to manage behaviours may not be placed into Foster Care.

Voluntary Placements

Voluntary placements involve a planned, negotiated agreement between the parent/guardian, child/young person, St Luke's caregivers and the St Luke’s workers.

Wherever possible the needs of the family and children are matched with the resources of caregiving families to work towards some agreed goals.

This planning, matching and negotiating process takes time.

St Luke's caregivers are relatively few in numbers. Many of them work and have family and other commitments that may limit their availability to provide full-time care for children. Unfortunately there is usually not a sufficient pool of caregivers freely available to meet all request at any time of the day or night, so finding suitable caregivers can be a lengthy and time consuming process.

Sometimes families request placement of their children in crisis/emergency situations. Where the family is known to St Luke's, the agency may be able to assist at short notice because of its existing knowledge of the children and what has worked well for them in the past.

Where respite care may be an appropriate resource for families; the family should be encouraged to discuss their needs directly with St Luke's and think of how this service will assist things to change.

Court Ordered Placements

When child protection workers are in the process of investigating a notification of child abuse or neglect, they sometimes have a need to ensure safety by placing a child in Home Based Care. These placements are almost always ordered by the children’s court, and become a part of the child protection intervention. Such placements may vary in length from a few days to several months. St Luke’s try to keep families as involved as is possible during these times, while at the same time ensuring safety.

ACCESS: DHS staff to provide information, after discussion with Request Worker.