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Our Advocacy

CREATE's advocacy priorities at a glance

CREATE Foundation advocates on issues that young people in care have told us are important to them. Through listening to the voices of children and young people across Australia, we have identified key focus areas for our advocacy, or what we call ‘Advocacy priorities’.

Our Advocacy priorities guide CREATE on the issues we speak to decision-makers about, write submissions for, undertake consultations on, comment in the media and more. Read about them below.

Safety and stability in care

Every child and young person in care deserves a stable, safe and supportive home that prioritises their needs, relationships, and community ties.

What we want

Relationships

Safe, consistent, and meaningful relationships are the foundation of safety and wellbeing for children and young people in care.

What we want

Sibling, kin and family connection

Strong sibling, kin, and family connections are essential for identity, belonging, and emotional resilience for young people in care.

What we want

Rights, diversity and inclusion

Every young person has the right to have their identity affirmed and be supported in a way that helps them thrive.

What we want

Youth justice and raising the age

Reforming youth justice systems is essential to break cycles of criminalisation and ensure children are supported, not detained.

What we want

Transition to independence

Every young person leaving care should have access to the support, resources and stability needed for a successful transition.

What we want

Health & wellbeing

Health and wellbeing support is critical to improving life outcomes for children and young people in care.

What we want

Education

Equitable access to education is key to empowering children and young people in care to pursue their aspirations.

What we want

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander self-determination

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children have a right to connection, culture, and community through self-determined, culturally-informed care.

What we want

Residential care

Family preservation and early intervention are essential to avoid children entering care. When kids do enter care, home-based models are best suited to help kids thrive. Where residential care is necessary, it should provide meaningful relationships between care workers and young people, stability, therapeutic models, positive and responsive home environments, and holistic supports.

What we want

What we want

  1. Prioritising sibling placements 
    – Ensuring siblings are placed together whenever possible to maintain their bond. 
  2. Meaningful and regular connections 
    – Creating opportunities for children and young people to connect with siblings, kin and family in ways that are consistent, meaningful and in line with their wishes. 
  3. Transparency and communication 
    – Keeping children and young people informed about their family members and what is happening in their lives. 
  4. Support for maintaining connections 
    – Providing resources, guidance, and support to carers and caseworkers to facilitate ongoing family relationships. 
  5. Young people’s voices 
    – Actively involving children and young people in decisions about family contact, ensuring their wishes and needs are respected. 
  1. Prioritising relationships in care systems 
    – Systems, policies, and practices that place relationships at the heart of decision-making and service delivery. 
  2. Consistency in care relationships 
    – Support for carers and caseworkers to build and sustain long-term, trusting relationships with young people.
    – Minimising disruptions in relationships caused by system changes, placement moves, or workforce turnover. 
  3. Supporting family connections 
    – Opportunities and resources for children and young people to maintain safe and meaningful connections with family members. 
  4. Building a care community 
    – A collaborative care system that operates as a ‘care community,’ fostering networked relationships among children, carers, families, and professionals. 
  5. Listening and acting on young voices 
    – Ensuring children and young people are heard and that their views influence decisions about their relationships and care experiences. 
  1. Prioritising sibling placements
    – Ensuring siblings are placed together whenever possible to maintain their bond. 
  2. Meaningful and regular connections 
    – Creating opportunities for children and young people to connect with siblings, kin and family in ways that are consistent, meaningful and in line with their wishes. 
  3. Transparency and communication 
    – Keeping children and young people informed about their family members and what is happening in their lives. 
  4. Support for maintaining connections 
    – Providing resources, guidance, and support to carers and caseworkers to facilitate ongoing family relationships.
  5. Young people’s voices 
    – Actively involving children and young people in decisions about family contact, ensuring their wishes and needs are respected. 
  1. Rights-based child protection system 
    – Shift towards a system that prioritises the voices and rights of children and young people in all aspects of care and decision-making. 
  2. Listening to children keeps them safe 
    – Being informed about their rights, participating in decisions affecting them, and being taken seriously are critical elements of child safety. 
  3. Involvement in decision-making 
    – Ensure children and young people are involved in decisions about their individual care journey and the broader systems that impact their lives. 
  4. Inclusive service models 
    – Develop service models and practices that are safe, inclusive and responsive to young people from diverse backgrounds, including abilities, cultures, genders, sexualities, and neurodiversity. 
  1. Raise the age 
    – Increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 years (without exception) and the minimum age of detention to 16 years.
  2. Trauma-informed and therapeutic services 
    – Provide child-centred, trauma-informed, and therapeutic services for all children who come into contact with the justice system. 
  3. Comprehensive diversion supports 
    – Invest in early intervention and diversion programs to address underlying causes of offending and reduce contact with justice systems into adulthood. 
  4. Addressing disproportionate criminalisation of children in care 
    – Tackle the over-representation of children with a care experience—particularly those in residential care—within the justice system, by addressing systemic factors such as racism, poverty, trauma, and lack of support for mental health and housing needs. 
  5. End the criminalisation of children 
    – Implement reforms to ensure children are supported through community-based responses rather than being criminalised or detained. 
  1. Equitable resources across jurisdictions 
    – Ensure all young people have access to consistent and equitable transition opportunities and resources, regardless of their location. 
  2. Robust transition support packages 
    – Provide strong transition packages, including adequate allowances, to ensure young people have real choices and housing options as they transition from care. 
  3. Support until 25 
    – Guaranteed housing, financial and emotional support for young people leaving care up to the age of 25. 
    – Increase the Commonwealth Government’s Transition to Independent Living Allowance from $1,500 to $10,000. 
    – Increase State Government independent living allowances to $16,000 per year. 
  4. Opportunities for work and study 
    – Create flexible arrangements that enable young people to engage in work or study aligned with their aspirations. 
  1. Comprehensive health assessments 
    – Health assessments for all children entering care. 
    – Annual health assessments while in care to monitor and address ongoing needs. 
  2. Improved access in regional areas 
    – Enhancements to healthcare services for children and young people living in regional and remote areas. 
  3. Priority access to services 
    – Priority and fast-tracked pathways to diagnostic services and NDIS supports for children and young people in care. 
  4. Targeted mental health supports 
    – Trauma-informed mental health service models, tailored to the needs of children and young people in care. 
  5. Collaboration across systems 
    – Strengthened collaboration between child safety, disability and health systems to ensure seamless access to interventions and supports. 
  1. Practice improvements 
    Foster collaboration between education and child protection sectors to enhance support for young people in care. 
  2. Better placement decisions 
    – Ensure placements prioritise proximity to schools and continuity in education. 
  3. Transport solutions 
    – Provide reliable and accessible transportation options to help children and young people attend school consistently.
  4. Flexible funding 
    – Cover essential school costs such as uniforms, books, technology, and extracurricular activities. 
  5. Streamlined permissions 
    – Simplify processes to allow children and young people to engage in school activities without unnecessary delays and exclusion.
  6. Bridging programs and alternative pathways 
    – Offer programs to help young people catch up on missed education and explore non-traditional pathways that suit their interests. 
  7. Addressing barriers and stigma 
    – Tackle systemic barriers and combat the stigma that discourages young people in care from fully engaging in education. 
  1. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led approaches 
    –     First Nations communities leading and designing care models and family support approaches to meet the needs of their children and young people.
    – Self-determination for First Nations people, communities and sector in relation to individual and collective decision-making. 
  2.  Community-controlled services 
    –     Proportionate investment in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations to deliver culturally-informed services, based on community needs. 
  3.  Connection to culture 
    –     Supporting children’s rights to connection with Country, culture, lore, spiritual systems, protocols, practices, language, kin, clan, and community as a protective factor that strengthens identity, wellbeing and resilience.
    – Recognising connection to culture and community as essential pathways to healing families and building strong futures. 
  4.  Data sovereignty 
    –     Ensuring First Nations communities have ownership and control over data that impacts their children and young people. 
  5.  Independent oversight 
    – Establishing dedicated Commissioners for Aboriginal Children and Young People in all jurisdictions, empowered to oversee systems affecting First Nations children. 
  1. Family preservation and early intervention 
    – A systemic shift that increases investment in family preservation and early intervention to support children’s safety and wellbeing, reduce the need for care, and address the disproportionate number of First Nations children in care. 
  2. Home-based care models 
    – Promote home-based models like kinship and foster care, which better meet children’s developmental and relational needs through continuity of relationships with carers.
  3. Improvement of residential care 
    – Where residential care is needed, we advocate for: Smaller homes (unless catering for sibling groups) to improve quality and safety, staffing models that prioritise meaningful relationships between workers and young people, and therapeutic care models that address the holistic needs of young people, with a strong focus on mental health support.

Advocacy highlights

NSW bans alternative care arrangements

After tireless advocacy from CREATE Young Consultant, Lachlan, other young people and our sector, NSW will ban the use of alternative care arrangements.
Read more

Supported placements to 21 #MakeIt21

CREATE has been advocating for many years in each state and territory to extend care and supports to young people to the age of 21. With NSW’s announcement late 2022, all states and territories are now providing support to young people to the age of 21.
Click here for more

Sibling connection in focus in SA

CREATE Foundation, in partnership with SA young people with a care experience and the Department for Child Protection, SA have developed a Sibling Connection Practice Guide to support the sector in facilitating and maintaining important sibling, kin and family connections.
Download the guide

New resource for educators out of ACT

CREATE Foundation partnered with young people in the ACT to develop a resource for educators. The Resource provides teachers with insights and tips from young people for supporting students growing up in out-of-home care.
Read the resource

Advocacy Wrap Ups

CREATE’s monthly Advocacy Wrap Ups provide regular updates on our latest advocacy for improving the lives of children and young people with an out-of-home care experience. We send these out to our email subscribers monthly (including clubCREATE).

Visit the end of this page to subscribe to our enews or read our past Advocacy Wrap Ups below.

How we work with young people to create meaningful change

Consultations

Every year, CREATE holds consultations around Australia with children and young people with a care experience. Their participation in our consultations gives vital insights into the effectiveness of the out-of-home care system, most often related to legislation, policy and practice.
Find consultation opportunities

Young person Boards and Committees

CREATE facilitates lived experience Boards and Committees with young people who have grown up in care. We've had the Youth Expert Advisory Group (YEAG) in Victoria, the National Experience to Action Board (Youth) also known as NEABY and Queensland's Ministerial Youth Advisory Group SHIFT to name a few.
Get involved

Policy Roundtables

CREATE supports young people with lived experience of the care system to engage in Policy Roundtables with decision-makers including Ministers, senior government executives and sector leaders. They provide a platform for integrated conversations, ensuring that the perspectives of young people are central to decision-making processes.
Learn more through our Menu of Consultations

Advocacy products

Best Practice Guides

With input from both practitioners and young people, CREATE's Practice Guides bridge the gap between academic research and real-world application, providing tangible guidance, tools, case studies, and practices.

View our Best Practice Guides

Submissions

CREATE responds to inquiries on issues affecting children and young people in out-of-home care by developing submissions to government, Commissions of Inquiry and Royal Commissions.

Read Submissions

Lived Experience Governance Groups

CREATE Foundation is a leader in facilitating Lived Experience Governance Groups across Australia, providing strategic advice and systemic insights that are grounded in the lived and living experiences of young people. These groups are designed to ensure that policies, programs, and decisions reflect the realities of those who have lived through the care system.

Learn more

Interested in learning more about the work that we do?

Check out our Menu of Programs and Menu of Consultations for more information.

Download our Menu of Programs
Download our Menu of Consultations