Foster carers in Victoria receive just $231 a week – one quarter the cost of caring for a child

‘Clothes, food, transport, medical expenses – everything is supposed to come out of that’ … Foster carer allowances across Australia cover a fraction of the minimum cost of care, according to a new report. Photograph: Nadezhda1906/Getty Images/iStockphoto

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.