In everyday foster care practice, young people’s feedback can open up honest discussion about placement life, school, family contact and support from adults. Aimed at teenagers in care, this foster care questionnaire gives a structured way to hear directly from a young person about what is working, what feels difficult, and what they would change.
A seven-point agreement scale asks teenagers to rate statements about enjoying life, learning at school or TAFE, friendships, hopes for the future, decision-making, stress around birth family contact and making sense of feelings. The wording is direct and suited to young people aged 12 and over in foster care, kinship-style care or long-term out-of-home care settings.
The foster family section focuses on belonging, getting on with people in the home, shared good times, arguments and whether the young person wants to grow up in the placement. These questions may help foster carers, supervising social workers and independent reviewers understand the child’s lived experience rather than relying only on adult observations.
Several items explore the young person’s relationship with their caseworker, including whether they are seen enough, listened to, offered help, supported to understand their life story and kept in touch with birth family. There is also a short rating table for agencies such as school, DoCS, doctors, health services, counsellors and the foster care programme.
The final pages include questions about previous long-term placement breakdown, support during moves, feeling listened to, and whether the current placement feels better. Open prompts ask for the best and worst things about the foster family, plus what the young person would change, making it useful as a foster placement review form, consultation tool or youth voice survey.
