Grandparent carers: 'You can't just sit back and do nothing'

Updated

There's a growing number of older Australians who are raiding their super so they can care full-time for their grandkids. But many of them are informal carers — meaning they don't go through the court system and get little financial support. One family is on a mission to change that.

Four-year-old Jayde shrieks with delight as she races around the backyard of her Victorian country home.

The 50-year-old woman chasing her has protected her and met all her needs since she was a baby.

Sue Erben is not Jayde's mother; she's her grandmother.

"We have had her pretty much since she was born. Her mum and dad tried to do the parenting thing early on but neither of them were capable," Sue said.

"They split up when she [Jayde] was three months old and she's pretty much been in our care since then."

Erin is Jayde's 22-year-old mother.

She loves her daughter dearly but says she understands she can't care for Jayde right now.

"I don't want her to know anything about the lifestyle I've lived, and still living really," Erin said.

"I don't want her to know what drugs are ... because I've been around people who have kids in their care and they've blown smoke of a bong into their child's face and it's disgusting."

Erin has just moved from transitional housing to a share house in a regional city, about an hour away from Sue and Jayde.

Since the birth of her daughter when she was 18 years old, Erin has been homeless, an ice user, and spent six months in drug rehabilitation.

She struggles with her mental health and still regularly uses marijuana, although she's seeing a drug and alcohol counsellor.

"It's more of a self-medication sort of thing to try and stop myself before the depression kicks in ... and I get very suicidal. And I'd rather get high before I get suicidal," Erin said.

Erin says she was abused — emotionally, physically and sexually — by a relative when she was a young girl.

She's still dealing with that abuse, and being pregnant and having a baby was too much.

"It was very difficult, there'd be times when I couldn't change her [Jayde's] nappy or something because it's too emotionally raw still. It was difficult," Erin said.

"I wanted to protect her but I was scared that I'd be the one to hurt her too. Because I was so unwell mentally."

Erin recalls the night she realised she couldn't care for her daughter anymore.

"Jayde wouldn't stop crying and I had all these pieces of papers and everything that told me what to do — like feed her, burp her, change her, give her a bath — but she wouldn't settle down," she said.

"I remember I held her in my arms and I screamed at her. As soon as I'd done that it snapped in my head, that's not cool.

"So I went and put her down in her cot and then I called mum straight away and said, 'I really need you, I really need you, I can't', and she came around."

Erin breaks down. "[Mum is] amazing. I would not be here if it wasn't for her."

'It's been a hard road, but we are one of the success stories'

Sue facilitates Erin coming to visit her daughter regularly. Jayde has some contact with her father who lives a long distance away.

"It's been a hard road, but we are one of the success stories, you don't often hear that," Sue said.

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"We haven't had anything like a lot of people have where the biological parents abuse, physically abuse the carers. We did get, 'You stole my baby' early on, that's fairly common," Sue said.

Her husband Karl interjects. "Even Erin's friends were saying that on Facebook, 'How dare you steal your daughter's baby'."

"But," Sue adds, "People don't realise: this is a child's life you're playing with. And when they're not in a good situation, you can't just sit back and do nothing."

Karl Erben works casually as a fitter and turner. He's the family's sole income earner.

He's not Jayde's biological grandparent but loves her like his own.

When we visit the Erbens' home, Karl is heading off to work before dawn.

He was only released from hospital 24 hours earlier, after suffering chest pains.

"We don't get a great deal of money or anything, we just live on our wage day to day. And if I don't go to work I don't get paid. So I do go to work," Karl shrugged.

He started to drive to work but ill health forced him to return home.

"I got to Woolies and got some stuff for work and got back to the car and was just sort of staggering sideways like I was drunk," Karl said.

He's off to the doctor again. For the family, that means a missed day's pay, and a lean week ahead.

The couple have dipped into $20,000 of Karl's superannuation when he had an operation and couldn't work.

Sue had to give up her part-time work at a supermarket to be the full-time carer.

The couple are eligible for the means-tested Family Tax Benefit A and B, which gives them about $400 a fortnight.

If they were foster carers, they would also be eligible for state government payments of up to $1,500 per child per fortnight, depending on age and circumstance, as well as school and medical bills.

But Sue and Karl are classified as informal carers, which means they didn't go through the Children's Court or child protection services to get custody of Jayde.

"When we first took Jayde, the case was reported to child protection, they came around and assessed us on two visits to make sure we were OK, and they closed the case. So we didn't get any payments," Sue said.

"I said, 'How is that fair?' Because Jayde is missing out, why should she be punished? We've had full-time care of her, through no fault of her own."

'It's so unfair that the children are missing out'

Sue said she fought for three-and-a-half years to get fortnightly payments of about $378 from the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services.

Many informal carers are not eligible for that sort of payment, despite having full-time care of their grandchildren.

Sue is lobbying to change that.

She's set up a Facebook group that has connected more than 600 grandparent carers. They want recognition that without them, their grandchildren would be in state or foster care.

They stress the money is not for them. It's for their grandchildren's needs.

"It's so unfair that the children are missing out, because the government doesn't recognise what we do," Sue said.

"Some children come into our care with lots of medical problems due to drug use during pregnancy, the abuse they've suffered, they're extremely traumatised, that is not going to fix itself.

"The kids end up with us and then if there's no support there, you're raising another generation who are dependent on the government. And we're trying to stop that. But we can't do it by ourselves."

The ABC has spoken to dozens of grandparent carers who are raising their grandchildren with little or no financial support.

Many have given up jobs, sold their homes, lost businesses, dipped into their superannuation, and in some cases spent $40,000 on legal bills to get custody of their grandchildren.

Federal Social Services Minister Christian Porter declined an interview request, saying it was largely a state and territory issue. A ministerial spokesman said:

"He [the Minister] feels that the issue is largely one for states in terms of supports provided to foster and similar categories of parents, noting that grandparent carers [and other kinship carers] do have access to relevant Commonwealth payments [Family Tax Benefit, Child Care Benefit] and that there are specific services available through Centrelink such as Grandparent Advisers."

'We are seeing an incredible growth in informal arrangements'

An hour-and-a-half west from where Karl and Sue live is another town on the Murray River — Moama.

It was in the river in March that a woman allegedly drowned one of her sons, and attempted to drown his brother.

The boys were in the care of their grandparents, in an informal arrangement like Karl and Sue Erben's, when their mother allegedly abducted them.

The grandparents are represented by lawyer Dale Brooks, who says the grandparents repeatedly asked for help from numerous authorities before the tragedy.

The case is now in court.

"[This case] really underlines what can go wrong when there isn't a system of coordination and help provided to them [grandparent carers]," Mr Brooks said.

"That case obviously involved tragic circumstances of lack of communication, no proper support, a lack of practical and financial assistance.

"We are seeing an incredible growth in informal carer arrangements."

Mr Brooks said the difference in financial support for foster carers and grandparent carers was extraordinary and unfair.

"There's a lack of practical financial support for them, there's also a lack of moral support and emotional support," he said.

"It comes down to their role as family carers is undervalued. Government agencies invariably are not communicating with them and in often cases, they live in fear they are going to lose their grandchildren."

For Sue and Karl, losing Jayde would be their worst nightmare.

"We've got no legal rights, we've got no rights whatsoever. Because our legal standing is non-existent, if either parent wanted to come and get Jayde, we couldn't actually stop them," Sue said.

"Even though Jayde has lived here all her life, she knows nothing else."

It's a constant fear, but one Sue is prepared to live with, along with the financial stress and uncertainty.

"If we have any say about it, we'll have Jayde for the next 10 years at least. Because this is the only home she knows. She doesn't know anything else."

Topics: family, family-and-children, community-and-society, vic, australia

First posted