Picture: iStock
Up to three quarters of all grandparents who are looking after their grandchildren as full time carers, don’t or can’t access payments and support services because they don’t want to “rock the boat.”
That is the startling finding of a parliamentary inquiry into grandparent carers.
“The system is broken,” said grandmother Sue from Melbourne, “Mostly because there are two types of grandparent carers.”
“Those that are officially recognised and supported by state government welfare agencies and their contracted charities and then there is the much larger group of grandparents who get nothing, are not recognised, don’t have many rights and don’t appear in any statistical data.”
“I’m one of them.”
Invisible carers
The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs’ inquiry into ‘Grandparents who take Primary Responsibility for raising their Grandchildren’ backs Sue up, one hundred percent. Here are just four of the highlights from the committee’s report:
1) “There is no data on the number of informal grandparents raising grandchildren in Australia.”
2) For various reasons many grandparents cannot, or choose not to, formalise care arrangements for their grandchildren.
3) Some grandparent carers do not claim family assistance payments due to complex and sensitive relationships with their own children.
4) State government welfare departments can decline to support grandparent carers without family court orders.
Dr Caroline O’Neill from the Permanent Care and Adoptive Families association in Victoria explained how grandparents miss out:
“The police or some other organisation will ring a grandparent and say, ‘We have these kids here, can you come and take them?’
“Of course you are going to take them,” Dr O’Neill told the committee.
“In that moment of taking them, you usually lose any possibility of statutory status. In Victoria, for instance, the Department of Human Services, Victoria will say the children are now safe so we do not need to go to court, we do not need to register these people formally and therefore they will not get any support at all.”
Love doesn’t pay the bills. Picture: iStock
No support once you’re out of the system
Sue has cared for her four-year-old granddaughter most of her life. Two years ago, the Victorian Department of Human Services visited Sue’s family, made an assessment and decided that the child was safe and closed the case.
“So now we are out of the system and get no support from them at all.”
Somewhat strangely, if Sue’s grandchild was assessed as not safe, she may still be eligible for financial assistance from the state government. If Sue did not put her hand up and say I’ll care for my grandchild, foster carers would be found and paid to do the job she does for free.
Each state’s arrangements for grandparent, relative, kinship and foster carers is different but they are all based on an assessment of whether the child is safe.However Sue is eligible to Centrelink’s Family Tax Benefit A & B, depending on how much her husband earns each fortnight. Right now he earns too much for Sue to receive a Health Care Card and Parenting Payment. While Centrelink does not require Sue to prove she has court -ordered primary carer status to receive payments, the support is minimal.
“It’s not enough to cover the costs of raising a child and grandparents face health issues that younger parents don’t face,” said Sue.
“We’ve had to access our superannuation twice just to support ourselves.”
The support for grandparents is minimal. Picture: iStock
Struggling to get by
About 16,000 other grandparent carers in Australia are also in Sue’s situation. But there might be four times that number who get absolutely nothing.
The committee found that: “Some grandparent carers do not claim family assistance payments due to complex and sensitive relationships with their own children.
“One research study found that the ratio of informal to formal kinship carers is about three to one. However, witnesses who gave evidence to the inquiry considered that the ratio is four to one or higher,” the senators reported.
“In either case, there are a significant number of grandparents raising their grandchildren without legal recognition.”
Grandmother, May, from Toowoomba explains things in plain english.
“Among grandparent carers I know, it’s common for the parents to threaten to take the kids back if they go to make a claim with Centrelink for the Family Tax Benefits.
“Grandparents can often think it’s better not to rock the boat.”
Even grandparents who are recognised as primary carers and do get assistance from state welfare agencies still live with plenty of uncertainty. Brisbane grandmother Deborah has been primary carer for her three year old grandson since birth.
“Nothing is secure, there’s a lot of back and forward and I seem to have to tell the same story to different case officers over and over again.”
Deborah is currently seeing a free counsellor organised through her GP because she feels “overwhelmed, terrorised and traumatised.”
May describes her life as a battle.
“But it’s a battle grandparents take on each day and we just battle on”
What help can you access?
Deborah says she found great support from the Family Drug Support Australia support line – 1300 368 186. This service is run by a not-for-profit support group in Sydney.
And Centrelink have specialist Grandparent Advisers serving each state and territory. They can be contacted through Centrelink’s Grandparent Adviser line on 1800 245 965.
More information on Centrelink support for grandparent carers can be found here.
