It was the simplest of gestures but it’s consequences for children in Australia could be life-changing.
Jarrod Wheatley was working as a social worker in Germany in 2011 when he experienced a ‘light bulb’ moment that led him to introduce a new out-of home care model for vulnerable children in Australia – an accomplishment that saw the former Katoomba resident named 2019 NSW Young Australian of the Year last month.
“I witnessed a moment in Germany where this girl rested her head on her carer’s shoulder at nighttime when they were watching television,” said Mr Wheatley.
The casual act of human connection went against everything he had been taught in Australia about professionals needing to keep distance from their clients.
“I’d been told in the work I’d done before that I had to keep a professional distance and that’s what it meant to be a professional. But here I was seeing a model in Germany that had counsellors, social workers, therapists and psychologists all offering real relationships to children.”
Or as the girl’s carer told Mr Wheatley the next morning: “Jarrod, it’s not about professional distance; it’s about professional nearness.”
After further researching the model in his two-year stay in Germany, Mr Wheatley returned to Australia determined to introduce it here.
“Once you know there’s a better way, it’s pretty difficult to let the idea go,” he said.
That determination would come in handy.
Getting the groundbreaking model – known as Professional Individualised Care (PIC) – over Australia’s bureaucratic hurdles took almost three years.
The first battle was gaining accreditation from the NSW Office of Children’s Guardian which only approved two types of children’s care – foster care and group homes. The PIC model was neither.
It took Mr Wheatley a year to overcome this obstacle before he was able to work at gaining support from the department of Family and Community Services to fund the model.
Despite the slow process, the 30-year-old said he never considered giving up.
“I think when you know the stakes are effectively children’s lives – that sounds dramatic but that’s how it feels for me – then the only appropriate response is to give it everything you’ve got,” he said.
PIC places a child in the home of a Professional Therapeutic Carer (PTC) who can develop a real relationship with the child. Prior to this, children who were too traumatised for a foster home would generally be placed in a group home where they were cared for by shift workers and were at risk of becoming institutionalised. In simple terms, it is individualised care rather than “one size fits all”.
IJS CEO Jürgen Reinfandt said part of the organisation’s mission statement is “to spread our idea all over the world”.
“It provides a model of care for traumatised, neglected and abused children to give them a real chance to create their own life,” he said.
Mr Wheatley said the benefits of the PIC model cannot be overstated.
“For a child who might have never lived in a home for more than three months, for them to be still living with someone a year later and regulating their emotions with an adult they trust, that’s a huge step,” he said.
“The heart of the model is real relationship. To achieve this you need committed, skilled Professional Therapeutic Carers. They are doing the most impressive work and they need to be paid as professionals.”
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Research has also shown the PIC model offers a better return on public funds in both the short and long-term.
Australia still has a long way to go to catch up with Germany’s embrace of the PIC model, where 37 organisations provide care to more than 3500 young people. PIC in Australia currently has eight carers looking after six young people.
“You get to what felt like the finish line at the start-up phase and you realise you’re actually at the start of the race,” said Mr Wheatley.
But now the difficult groundwork has been carried out, other organisations and governments are likely to adopt the PIC model in Australia – changing children’s lives as a result.
“Already in Australia I can see we’ve got children who maybe for the first time in their life have somewhere they belong and someone they can trust in,” said Mr Wheatley.
