Supporting multicultural children in out-of-home care: A cultural care planning toolkit

Building relational and cultural continuity for children in out-of-home care is a core objective of Australia’s permanency policies and aligns with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which affirms children’s rights to safe connections with family, community, and culture. Despite this policy commitment, out-of-home care practice has long lacked clear guidance to support the cultural care needs of children from multicultural family backgrounds. Drawing on established cultural care practices with Indigenous children, alongside Australian practice wisdom developed over several decades, and informed by operational managers of an out-of-home care service meeting regularly over multiple years to review practice enablers and barriers, this paper presents a newly designed multicultural toolkit to strengthen cultural care planning and connection for multicultural children in out-of-home care. The toolkit comprises two interconnected resources: (1) a cultural care plan, and (2) a cultural booklet. The toolkit supports practitioners and carers to develop a nuanced understanding of children’s individual cultural contexts and to actively engage families and communities in exploring heritage, cultural and social histories, geography, traditions, languages, and rituals. These elements inform the development of individualised cultural care plans that promote meaningful, sustained cultural connections. A composite case study, provided as supplementary material, illustrates the practical application of the toolkit in supporting children in out-of-home care to uphold their cultural rights. Early practice learning from the toolkit’s implementation highlights lessons for policy, practice and monitoring.

Keywords: cultural connections, cultural planning, culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) children, out-of-home care, social work practice.