Welcome to the Australian Foster Care Studies website. These projects are led by Professor Damien W. Riggs at Flinders University and are funded through an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant. The projects focus on the lived experiences of foster care and aim to create best practice frameworks for foster care agencies and workers. We understand the term ‘foster care’ to refer to foster carers, kinship carers, and permanent carers.
We are currently recruiting for three studies, Understanding Vicarious Trauma in Australian Foster Care, Experiences of Regret Among Foster Parents, and Experiences of Care Concerns in Foster Care Settings. Click the Projects tab for further information on the studies and to see whether you might be eligible to participate.