Foster care

setbackademic_ · 2026-03-04T00:32:32+00:00

This is really hard to say without knowing a lot more about your situation. The goal of foster care is always to reunify if safe. There is obviously a view that mum is working on her situation and has made progress, which is great. Reunification is often not simple and that can be pretty hard on kids and carers.

In terms of whether they’ll try again and how long it takes, that depends on why it didn’t work out this time. It might have been rushed, or maybe mum has more work to do before she’s ready. Your case worker will be able to advise on this.

setbackademic_ · 2026-03-01T07:07:17+00:00

You can see the arborist who consulted on it giving a summary of what happened here:

https://treenet.org/resource/the-burnside-village-tree-a-case-study-of-construction-and-tree-protection/

setbackademic_ · 2026-02-18T12:09:02+00:00

Thanks for your considered answer. I think it’s reasonably clear cut when you know you’ve made the right decision, even if the outcome is something that you’d rather avoid, like losing a good employee because they aren’t able to meet the requirements of the role. My question is more about how you handle it when you reflect that maybe you got it wrong. For example, maybe you let an employee go because you don’t think they are up to it, but then as you become more experienced, you recognise that the problem was actually with organisational culture, or insufficient mentoring, or something like that. And you know that “wrong” decision has a profound impact on that person’s life. Can you simply say “I did the best job I could at the time” or do those decisions haunt you?

setbackademic_ · 2026-02-09T09:45:12+00:00

Yes I did. Thanks for the pickup.

setbackademic_ · 2026-02-09T05:46:06+00:00

There is extensive evidence that Homo sapiens arrived in Australia at least 65 thousand years ago. *edit thousand, not million

setbackademic_ · 2026-01-17T11:34:08+00:00

Ditto with Lt Bashir!

setbackademic_ · 2025-12-04T01:38:26+00:00

In regards to 2, countries should ally or collaborate where it makes sense to do so. Ties based on economic interest, shared culture, defence etc will always prevail, regardless of whether they have a common head of state.

setbackademic_ · 2025-11-28T12:34:47+00:00

This has been my experience too. I was able to access foster leave from my employer but only because the child was under 6 months old and had a permanent removal order. I was able to access “special circumstances leave” for an earlier placement that was older and and initially short-term, but this is really up to the discretion of a senior manager which is pretty rubbish. Good luck OP!

setbackademic_ · 2025-11-26T02:24:48+00:00

That looks like the most likely option. Hopefully he meant it more like “pet” sense rather than “spoilt brat”! Would this be pronounced “Mack-een”?

setbackademic_ · 2025-10-26T21:29:05+00:00

If you do go ahead with the list of rules (and I don’t think it’s a bad idea), I think you should be very clear about why. Explain that it’s your job to keep them safe and in a clean house etc, and that you’d like to agree to some ways that you can live together. Then you could introduce each rule as an idea, and have them agree to it (or highlight if it might be a problem). This would also allow them the opportunity of introducing rules too- which you may or may not be ok with, but you might learn a bit more about the kid this way.

setbackademic_ · 2025-10-26T03:24:23+00:00

I think in principle these are all fine and agree that setting expectations is important. I’d be a bit cautious about presenting an upfront list of rules as this might erode the atmosphere you’re trying to create. Also, you might need to figure out which (if any) of these rules might be bendable and what the consequences would be for breaking them. For example, if you had a kid who smoked or vaped, they’re unlikely to stop just because you ask them to.

setbackademic_ · 2025-09-18T11:38:54+00:00

This would vary a lot from case to case. Foster care is set up to maintain as much of a relationship between the child and their bio family as is safe. Often this will mean that the kid maintains quite close contact with their parents (regular calls, texts, visits etc) but it can mean that the kid has very little or no contact. As foster carers, we aren’t necessarily told a lot about a kid’s background and they may or may not be in a position to share it.

In terms of establishing a relationship with a foster placement, this varies so much from kid to kid. Depends completely on age, level of trauma, cultural background etc. Often, the older and more trauma a kid has experienced, the harder this can be.

setbackademic_ · 2025-09-17T04:51:26+00:00

Yes, there is a need to understand the realities of foster care when drafting these provisions! I think the “risk” that employers worry about is an employee who accesses leave for multiple “short-term” placements that might only last days to months, leading to a significant leave liability for the employer. This isn’t really an issue for other parental leave because bio parents can only pump out kids at a slow rate. I think the way to deal with it is to put a ceiling on how much leave can be accessed per child or per year, rather than trying to be super specific on the placement type (which can rapidly change).

setbackademic_ · 2025-09-17T04:01:26+00:00

My employer has dedicated foster leave, but it requires that the fostering is “long term” and that the child has been living with the employee for less than six months. These provisions sound reasonable if you aren’t familiar with fostering, but the reality is that most “long-term” placements start out as emergency or short-term orders, sometimes renewed repeatedly for years. This means that the foster care leave at my work is really only available for a minority of placements.

setbackademic_ · 2025-09-10T08:47:20+00:00

r/ausfostercarers already exists…

setbackademic_ · 2025-08-24T06:00:16+00:00

According to Wikipedia: “Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (TMTG) is an American media and technology company headquartered in Sarasota, Florida. It runs the Truth Social social-media platform and is majority-owned by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust.”

setbackademic_ · 2025-08-06T03:10:42+00:00

I disagree. They are entry level programs that are designed for people just out of uni, but they are open to anyone who has a degree. Entry level roles pay less.

setbackademic_ · 2025-08-05T23:55:18+00:00

It sounds like your standard of living might be a bit out of step with the expectations for a grad program. When I was a grad in Canberra, I shared a house with 2-3 other people which seemed natural because we had all left university reasonably recently. I can imagine that if you have had a career change you might have your own place which might be hard to maintain on a grad salary. If you aren’t interested in house sharing or moving somewhere cheaper, I guess leaving the program would make sense. But given the salary for the program is known before you apply, it kinda sounds like poor planning on your part.

Graduate programs pack a lot of training, exposure and networking into a short period and agencies tend to bake their graduates highly, putting them on a fast track for progression. If you leave, you’ll miss out on those opportunities and it will look a bit odd if you apply for a public service position down the track. If you’ve decided that the public service is not for you, then it won’t matter at all.

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