Key information
- Stability and permanency in out of home care is complex, and the two concepts work together.
- Stability means things stay the same and are predictable – we know feeling stable helps you to have a good life.
- Stability is how we want you to feel, permanency options are what we can use to help.
- We work to find permanent and safe and supportive options if a child or young person is unable to live at home long term.
- Your needs may differ and change throughout your experience in out of home care. Your Child Safety Officer (CSO) will work hard to make sure your individual needs are understood and supported.
What is stability?
The Child Safety Service work to support stability in out of home care for you. Stability means you have:
- Meaningful, safe and lifelong relationships with adults.
- A place to call home.
- Legal arrangements to provide you with certainty.
- Ongoing connection to your culture and community.
You will have a say in all these things in your Care Team.
What is permanency?
Permanency means you have a long-term legal arrangement to best support you. It might be:
- Staying with your family and getting some extra support. Also known as preservation.
- Returning to your family when it is safe to do so. Also known as restoration.
- Having a new guardian look after you (like a carer or aunt/uncle). Also known as new guardian.
- Sometimes everyone might think that adoption is the best plan. Also known as adopted family.
Having a permanency option means that the Child Safety Service can:
- make sure you are safe.
- have the right people there to look after you.
- stop being involved in your life (or not as often), depending on the option put in place.
Sometimes the best plan for you is a long-term state guardianship order (also known as
18-year-order). This means the Child Safety Service get to stay around and help look after you until 18 (or sometimes even 21!)
It is important that you tell your CSO and care team if you don’t want a particular permanency option. You can also tell them if you have changed your mind.
How will we help you get stability and permanency?
“Nothing about me without me.”
We care about what you have to say and want to make sure you help us plan who you will spend your future with. These conversations happen with you and your CSO and Care Team.
We know that you and the people in your Care Team (including your CSO) know you best and we want to hear what you all have to say. It is by talking with all of these people and listening to you that we can help you be stable and get permanency.
Supporting document