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Speaker 1: You've heard of grandparents. What about grand careers, people who

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Speaker 1: look after grandchildren throughout the day because childcare is very

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Speaker 1: expensive and you might enjoy having them, you might be

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Speaker 1: glad to hand them back at the end of the

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Speaker 1: day too. But there are a lot of people looking

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Speaker 1: after lots of kids, in the thousands in both cases,

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Speaker 1: if not more, and they do this to help out

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Speaker 1: their kids of course, by looking after the grandchildren. And

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Speaker 1: how about some help in that is what a lot

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Speaker 1: of them are saying. Mike Fezchak is CEO Grand Careers

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Speaker 1: South Australia and he is on the line.

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Speaker 2: Mike, good morning, Good morning, rutthew Thanks for the invitation

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Speaker 2: to speak pleasure.

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Speaker 1: What would you like to see well rewarded here? What

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Speaker 1: are you looking for?

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Speaker 2: Well, the people that we want rewarded are the informal

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Speaker 2: we call informal grandparent careers, who are full time careers

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Speaker 2: of children who have been traumatized through what's going on

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Speaker 2: in their own parents' lives, whether that be drugging, alcohol abuse,

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Speaker 2: so whether that be mental health issues or incarceration or whatever.

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Speaker 2: But the children needed to find a place of safety.

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Speaker 2: So what we're talking about are not the grandparents who

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Speaker 2: have the children on a Wednesday or a weekend and

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Speaker 2: have the kids back. This is twenty four to seven.

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Speaker 2: This can be from being a baby to until they're

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Speaker 2: an adult. So they are full time careers, and the

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Speaker 2: same way that formal cares. No. Formal careers are the

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Speaker 2: ones who've got a legal instrument like a guardianship order

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Speaker 2: and they get supported by the state government. And unfortunately

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Speaker 2: the informal careers don't get any support whatsoever. They get

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Speaker 2: no financial support and they get no practical support from

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Speaker 2: the state government. Yet they are doing exactly the same

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Speaker 2: job as formal careers, and they are doing the same

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Speaker 2: job as foster cares for that matter. But keeping the

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Speaker 2: children within the family, within their own heritage and nurtured

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Speaker 2: and in a safe space.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And you know, arguably for children from

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Speaker 1: that sort of background, being with at least a grandparents

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Speaker 1: is the best possible outcome for them.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, they're keeping within the family that's been shipped out

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Speaker 2: to a stranger or entering the child protection system. I mean,

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Speaker 2: we in grand care as essay, we have thirteen hundred

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Speaker 2: families who are registered with us, supporting more than two

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Speaker 2: thousand children now that's probably the tip of the iceberg

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Speaker 2: and what's actually out there. We're not a huge organization,

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Speaker 2: we haven't got a huge profile. Yet we are connected

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Speaker 2: to over two thousand children. When the state government talk

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Speaker 2: about four thousand, eight hundred children in kinship care, that

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Speaker 2: ignores and excludes the two thousand children who are on

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Speaker 2: our books and the many other thousands of children who

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Speaker 2: are just out there who are hidden.

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Speaker 1: Okay, should some of those people then register with the department?

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Speaker 1: Is that the answer?

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Speaker 2: Well, what happens is in many many cases is the

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Speaker 2: Department of Child Protection have got a legislative expectation that

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Speaker 2: when they remove a child or children from their parents,

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Speaker 2: they've got to place them in a place of safety.

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Speaker 2: And that's exactly what they do. And the first call

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Speaker 2: and grandparent care is the fastest growing form of out

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Speaker 2: of home care for vulnerable children. The first call is

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Speaker 2: quite often and more cases than not, is the grandparents.

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Speaker 2: So the social workers from child Protection will take the

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Speaker 2: children to the grandparents and say here, you are either

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Speaker 2: look after these children or we're going to have to

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Speaker 2: enter the child protection system and put them in care.

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Speaker 2: So what choice do they have? At that point? The

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Speaker 2: social workers walk away. They've put the kids in a

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Speaker 2: safe place, so they've done what they're expected to do.

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Speaker 2: But there's no support. There's no government's not joined up,

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Speaker 2: there's no partner Human services support, there's no Department of

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Speaker 2: Child Protection supports. They don't even get a document that says, yes,

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Speaker 2: these are the children that you are in now in

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Speaker 2: your care. So can imagine what that's like if these

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Speaker 2: people are suddenly having to deal with schools or with

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Speaker 2: the health authorities and they've got those young children with them.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and in the meantime, they're living off their retirement

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Speaker 1: savings presumably all the pension, and trying to raise young children.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, look, the average age of our clients is

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Speaker 2: sixty five. Over sixty percent of those are single females,

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Speaker 2: and sixty six percent of those are living below the

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Speaker 2: poverty line, with fifty percent experience in food insecurity. So

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Speaker 2: they're struggling. And I know many many grandparents who have

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Speaker 2: spent their superannuation just so that they can bring their

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Speaker 2: children up, either so they can bring their children up,

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Speaker 2: or so they can fight for regards she border through

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Speaker 2: the legal process of the course. We had a lead

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Speaker 2: recently one hundred and thirty thousand dollars gone in a year.

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Speaker 1: Okay, is the government listening to this at all?

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Speaker 2: Well, look, I have had discussions with the Ministry for

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Speaker 2: Child Protection, Katrina Hilgeer. I mean, she's very sympathetic towards it.

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Speaker 2: But obviously at this stage I'm getting no promises, and

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Speaker 2: we are asking the government to replicate what's currently going

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Speaker 2: on in Wa. Now, what's going on in Wa is

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Speaker 2: they have a state payment to informal grandparent careers. It's

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Speaker 2: only one thousand dollars per child perannum. I'll let that

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Speaker 2: think in one thousand dollars per child paranum, which is

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Speaker 2: not a lot of money. It's four or five shops

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Speaker 2: at Woolly's. However, it's one thousand dollars per child perannum,

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Speaker 2: more than our clients are getting. And we're asking for

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Speaker 2: informal grand parent careers, those who are supporting children, stopping

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Speaker 2: them entering the child protection system, creating an early intervention.

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Speaker 2: We're asking for a state payment to support these this

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Speaker 2: very important role that these people are doing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, so that needs to be adopted. From

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Speaker 1: what you say, and at this stage, no promises. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't sound hopeful to be honest, Mike.

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Speaker 2: Well, look, I mean, we can just keep asking the question.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the response that I keep seeing from the

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Speaker 2: state government is that they are supporting grand grand cares essay,

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Speaker 2: and that they've increased our payments. As an organization, we

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Speaker 2: get roughly one hundred and fifty dollars per family that

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Speaker 2: we support per year. That's not per week up a month,

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Speaker 2: that's per year, and that's to run our operations where

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Speaker 2: we are supporting thirteen hundred families and the two two

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Speaker 2: hundred children that are in their care. So it's not

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Speaker 2: about supporting our organization. It's about supporting those individuals who

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Speaker 2: are using their pensions, who are selling their assets, who

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Speaker 2: are re mortgaging their homes so that they can look

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Speaker 2: after children in our society.

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Speaker 1: All right, Mike, good luck with that and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: do get somewhere. Hopefully the government does introduce a similar

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Speaker 1: policy and grand carers looked after in the same way

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Speaker 1: as you suggest in WA. It seems much needed.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Matthew. I certainly hope we've managed to get

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Speaker 2: some success.

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Speaker 1: Indeed, Mike fzchak CEO Grand Careers South Australia