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National Housing Conference - meet the speaker

Sarah Morris, researcher with lived experience of state-managed out of home care

01 Feb 2022


Sarah.MSarah Morris’ time in government run residential out-of-home care, from age 13 to when she ‘aged out’ of the system at 18, has given her a deep and profound understanding of what it really means for a young person to have to separate from their family and to live state-managed housing.  

‘When you’ve suffered so much trauma you don’t trust people, so the sector workers really have to work hard to gain your trust and a lot of the time they don’t have time for that’, says Sarah. ‘Often young people get put in the too hard basket, labelled a problem child or you’re a delinquent. In my case, I was transient through most of year 8 and I was encouraged to leave school by the department, because apparently, I wasn’t fit for mainstream schooling and yet now, here I am, with a Master’s Degree in social work!’

Today, just over 12 years later, Sarah is using her life experience to try and help other young people who are experiencing similar circumstances. ‘I wanted to give back’, says Sarah. ‘To other young people in residential care, I wanted to be the person who helped me when I was in care. I had some really good workers who taught me that I can do things, inspired me, when everyone else—the system and society—didn’t believe in me.’

As well as being a frontline worker working daily with children and young people who face extreme risk situations, Sarah is also an early career researcher in the field of social work and has been part of the team delivering a recent key AHURI research project, Accommodating transition: improving housing outcomes for young people leaving OHC.

‘My passion is fuelled by my lived experience and unfortunately, while a lot of that is negative, I want to be a driving force for change; we can do a lot better and these kids deserve better’, says Sarah. ‘I want to use the power of those experiences to unmask the reality of the situation and put a face and a story onto the whole narrative of out-of-home care. The state has projects and statistics but sometimes they miss the human base of the work that we do—and that’s humans being human, caring and nurturing for others.’

The trauma for children who experience state-managed out-of-home care can be immense, stunting a young person’s brain development and their personal development.

‘I’ve looked after young people who have been in care since they were toddlers, I know one young person who has had over 200 workers in their life—think how stunting that is to a young person’s development—and yet during all that time in care the young person was never taught basics such as how to wash their hair,’ says Sarah. ‘I think a lot of professional workers in the sector don’t realise things like this because they haven’t lived it; they think this knowledge is innate within us, but it’s not. Knowledge can’t be learnt within a vacuum; young people are in a vacuum within residential care, that’s all they know.’

‘You can see it’s not working; the numbers of children in residential care is increasing exponentially. I’m seeing it because I know the kids personally—kids having kids while they’re in care, then those children taken away from them, very, very common. We all know it’s not good enough.’

Formulated during her time in residential care and later as a sector worker and researcher, Sarah sees a potential solution in creating professional foster carers.

‘Parents care for you and nurture you; the state can’t nurture you,’ says Sarah. ‘By having a young person in someone’s home for a long period of time it’d create trust, there’d be a different kind of perception of the whole thing. It would be a career, you’d be a trained professional foster carer getting paid so you’re not juggling other jobs, and do all the case management. You’d concentrate on the kids and work on healing, having those conversations and building meaningful memories. You’d bring it down to what kids need: home and family, that’s what they need.’

Sarah brings a lot to both the 2022 National Housing Conference and discussions of government policies and programs designed to help young people within and transitioning from out-of-home care. ‘I’m also hoping that being at this year’s National Housing Conference will give people the opportunity to ask me questions,’ says Sarah. ‘I’ll do my best to give them the benefit of my lived experience.’

Sarah will be presenting in the 2022 National Housing Conference session ‘Exiting care, entering a stable home: better supporting young people’ on Wednesday 2 March at 1.30 pm. Please visit the National Housing Conference website for more information.

National Housing Conference 2022

2 to 4 March - Melbourne