Exclusive: Report by Australian Institute of Family Studies found payments to foster carers fall ‘significantly short of a meaningful contribution’
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Louise Black has seen the good and the bad sides of out-of-home care.
Foster caring was common among the Catholic community in south-east Melbourne in which she grew up. The family over the road regularly fostered children, while also having four of their own. Black’s father, on the other hand, had been a ward of the state and spent much of his boyhood in some of the most notorious group homes.