New report on Forgotten Australians just released

A report into the life outcomes of people brought up in institutional care in Victoria, also referred to as “Forgotten Australians”, has just been released. It’s not too late to care is co-authored by Dr Catherine Forbes from the Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics and Sunitha Raman from the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare.

The research, commissioned by the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, compares the life outcomes of care leavers who had been raised in Victorian institutions against those in the general population belonging to the same age groups. The main aim of the research was to generate data to identify specific program responses to support care leavers in Victoria.

“A total of 77 care leavers took part in the research in what is described as an act of enormous courage and strength of character to recount the past and share their experiences through the survey,” Dr Forbes said.

The report was officially launched on Monday 21 July 2008 and follows recommendations of the Commonwealth Senate Community Affairs Committee report “Forgotten Australians” released in 2004 to research the impact and cost of institutional care. The research will help the Victorian Government and other agencies to establish targeted programs to support these Forgotten Australians.

The study found that care experiences have impacted on many domains, including health, education and income. Nearly three-quarters of care leavers in the survey live on minimal incomes, with a higher proportion of care leavers earning lower incomes and depending on a Government pension than in the general population.

In addition, an overwhelming number of care leavers have concerns about ageing and being in an aged care facility, due to their prior experiences in an institution.

The report’s recommendations to the Victorian Government include:

The establishment of a Victorian health card that identifies care leavers as a special community group and allows them priority access to and free concessions for physical, mental and dental health services.
Reviewing of Home and Community Care services guidelines to facilitate easy access to these services for care leavers. Training of innovative programs in partnership with care leavers and the Federal Government aimed at meeting the aged care needs of care leavers in alternative home-based settings.
Increased investment in support services for care leavers and their families such as counselling, literacy and numeracy, dental services, mental health services etc. through care leavers support groups and other community service organisations.
Assistance to community organisations to catalogue records, and set up supported record access services for care leavers seeking access to their personal records. The possibility of developing collaborative models of record access should also be explored.

Setting up a reparation and redress scheme in Victoria following the example set by others states in Australia.