About Us
Foster Care Angels exists to support those impacted by the foster care system.
The organisation provides ongoing support for children and their carers in the foster care system. The trauma that is experienced by many of these children is to most of us beyond belief and they bear the traumatic results throughout their entire life. Without support they become angry, depressed and dysfunctional adults turning to drugs and alcohol that lead them down the inevitable pathway to the criminal justice system and its vicious cycle. Foster Care Angels Board, staff and volunteers work to provide an opportunity to change this negative trajectory.
The core service of Foster Care Angels is to educate, support and empower vulnerable young people with a care experience.
When foster care children reach 18, they are deemed to be adults and are moved into community housing. Research has identified this cohort of young people as being the most vulnerable in the community. Transition into adulthood is faced without adequate life skills or family support that ensures a pathway into isolation, depression and significant representation in the criminal justice system. Existing services such as Headspace, Beyond Blue etc., orientate mental health programs requiring the person at risk to have the ability to identify themselves as having an issue. The FCA project provides an education program before leaving OoHC potentially mitigating the problems before they happen. This program aims to counterbalance some of the disadvantages of being a foster child. It provides education and development of skills that enable a mentally healthy transition into adult life through understanding how to manage anxieties that can lead to depression, feelings of isolation and other mental health issues and provide support for those that find themselves in difficulty.
A community made up of healthy and well-adjusted young people can only benefit the community in the long term. Wasted resources focused on anti-social behaviour impacts both a financial and community costs. By providing the appropriate education resources to a cohort of young people that are most likely to participate in this kind of behaviour mitigates future antisocial outcomes thus not only reducing costs but also enhancing positive generational outcomes and community well-being. Positive contributing members of a community that participate in its objectives and pay taxes to allow for growth and development is a key objective of this program. The expected outcome is basic self-respect and the removal of feelings of failure to build a productive society.
