Forecasting Children in Foster Care - New South Wales OOHC Funding Model

The New South Wales Department of Community Services is a state child protection agency in Australia. It has developed a stock and flow discrete-event simulation model that forecasts the population of children in out-ofhome care. This will allow planning and funding of out-of-home care services, as well as forecasting carer payment expenditure. It utilises estimates of unit costs for different service components and makes some assumptions about the average service packages and carer payment rates to be provided for the different types of children. Children have been found to stay longer in relative/kinship care compared to foster care. The biggest cause of out-of-home care population increases is the greater use of relative/kinship placements since 1998. The Model incorporates only five parameter shifts but its out-of-home care population projections closely predict observed past data, despite excluding all random changes. Forecasts are being continually updated as relevant new information becomes available. Introduction The New South Wales Department of Community Services is a state government agency in Australia which aims to protect children and young people from abuse and neglect. It provides services and support to improve family functioning and improve at-risk 3 children's life prospects. In certain circumstances, children and young people experiencing significant harm or abuse may be placed into foster care, with relatives or another form of out-of-home care (OOHC) by the Department. Out-of-home care refers to the provision of accommodation away from parents or the family home for children and young people aged less than 18 years, where the state makes a financial contribution to the carer. Carers receive financial payments and other support services and are monitored by Departmental Caseworkers. From 1996 to 2006, the number of children in OOHC in New South Wales increased from 5,826 to 10,623, resulting in correspondingly large changes in expenditure. In most years the population of children in care has increased significantly, although not at the same rate each year. Aside from budgetary issues, these fluctuations have resulted In unexpected workload increases for front-line staff and a shortfall in the number of foster carers. Predicting such changes in the future could: • allow remedial measures to be taken earlier; • produce more accurate expenditure forecasts; • assist resource allocation and other planning; and • allow testing of the effects of policy decisions, assisting policy makers to meet their objectives more effectively In 2002 the New South Wales Government announced an AUD$1.2 billion 5-year package for the New South Wales Department of Community Services. The package allocated an additional $180 million a year for OORC services from 2007-08. To allow planning of the services rollout to occur, the number and needs of children in care must be projected. An OORC Funding Model has been developed by the Department to project the number of children in OORC, their service needs and associated expenditure.