A STATE government-awarded grant will increase fostering services and provide new jobs at Kempsey’s Burrun Dalai Aboriginal Corp.
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The out-of-home care and family support service has found current foster homes for 57 Aboriginal children in the Macleay and Nambucca valleys, as well as providing support for their carers, young Aboriginal adults aged between 18 and 25 years, and families.
Its staff numbers have grown from four employees to 20 in four years.
The grant from the NSW Department of Family and Community Services will provide Burrun Dalai more than $4 million over the next four years.
The organisation’s executive officer Dana Clarke said the success of Burrun Dalai’s tender was a pat on the back for the work they had done.
“We will increase the number of foster places for Aboriginal children to 108,” she said.
“This should help us almost double the number of case workers we employ.
“We will also auspice two care services at Armidale and Tamworth, sharing our knowledge with them.”
The NSW government has awarded more than $120 million in grants to fostering services.
It is transferring provision to the non-government organisation sector following recommendations in the Woods report, an inquiry into child protection services that came as a result of several deaths of children in care.
Ms Clarke said NGOs were better resourced to ensure they were meeting the needs of children and it had been established that young Aboriginals fared better when they were placed in Aboriginal care facilities, than in non-Aboriginal facilities.
“We place Aboriginal children in Aboriginal foster homes,” she said.
“But we also provide support to long-term non-Aboriginal carers who want to keep Aboriginal kids in touch with their identity.”
Burrun Dalai, which means ‘Dream for Children’, is also a family referral service agency (in conjunction with the Benevolent Society). It acts as an assessor of needs in areas such as housing and problem behaviour.
It runs an intensive family-based program for families at risk; a Dalai Dreaming parenting program; and employs community promise workers, whose role is to provide support for child protection issues in the Aboriginal community.
