Foster Care Training NSW: Shared Stories Shared Lives and What Comes After

Everyone who becomes an authorised foster carer in NSW must complete mandatory pre-service training. There is no pathway around it. What surprises many people is how much they value the experience once they're in it — and how much practical ground the training does not cover, which is where the confusion sets in.

This post explains what the NSW training curriculum requires, what changed in July 2024, and what additional training is available once you're authorised and placing children.

The Mandatory Pre-Service Training Requirement

Under the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 and the policies that sit beneath it, every prospective foster carer in NSW must complete an approved pre-authorisation training program before their application can proceed to the Authorisation Panel. No exceptions.

The training is not an add-on to the assessment process — it is part of it. Your assessor and your agency track completion. You cannot be authorised without it.

The training is delivered by your authorising agency or by specialist training organisations such as the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare (CFECFW). It is free. You do not pay to attend.

Shared Stories, Shared Lives: The Current Program

Since July 2024, the mandatory NSW pre-service training has been delivered under the title Shared Stories, Shared Lives. This replaces the previous program, which was called simply "Shared Lives." If you've seen references to "Shared Lives" training, you're looking at slightly older material — the curriculum has been updated and rebranded.

The core modules cover:

The context of foster care in NSW. The legislative framework — the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998, the role of DCJ, and the Permanency Support Program (PSP). This is where you learn why NSW foster care has shifted from "long-term warehouse" thinking to active permanency planning with a two-year timeframe.

Developmental trauma and the brain. How early childhood abuse, neglect, or prenatal exposure to substances affects neurological development. This module often reframes how carers understand children's behaviour. What looks like defiance is frequently a stress response. What looks like indifference is often hypervigilance. Understanding the neuroscience changes how you respond.

Attachment and the PACE model. Attachment theory applied to fostering — specifically the "PACE" approach (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy) developed by psychologist Dan Hughes. This is the primary clinical framework taught in NSW and used by many agencies' therapeutic teams.

Grief and loss. Children in care have experienced the loss of their family, home, school, friends, and sense of normality — often all at once. This module helps carers understand why seemingly small triggers can produce large emotional responses.

Birth family contact. Why maintaining connection with birth family is a legal right and a developmental need for children in care. The module addresses how to manage contact visits, how to talk to children about their birth family, and how to separate your own feelings about the birth parents from the child's experience of them.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and culture. This is a significant component of the updated program. NSW has over-representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care, and the curriculum reflects the obligation to support cultural connection and identity for Aboriginal children in placement with non-Aboriginal carers.

The training typically runs across three full days or six evening sessions. Some agencies offer hybrid delivery.

Stepping Stones: The Kinship Carer Supplement

"Stepping Stones" is a related assessment and training package often used for kinship carers — grandparents, aunts, uncles, and family friends who find themselves providing care, often without having chosen it in the way that prospective foster carers do. It is calibrated to recognise the different starting point of kinship carers: they already have a relationship with the child, but may have had no preparation for the legal and administrative context of formal out-of-home care.

Stepping Stones can also be used as a supplementary module for foster carers who are focusing on specific age groups, particularly infants and toddlers, where the attachment and developmental content is especially relevant.

What the Training Does Not Cover

This is an honest point worth making: "Shared Stories, Shared Lives" is strong on therapeutic theory and the legislative framework. It does not reliably cover:

• How to complete an expense claim or track costs for contingency payment requests
• How the Annual Carer Review works and what to prepare
• How to contest a decision made by your agency or DCJ
• The practical mechanics of facilitating contact visits — driving arrangements, handover protocols, the emotional "decompression" children need afterwards
• How to access the Care +1 or Care +2 loading process
• What to do when you disagree with a Case Plan

Carers consistently report leaving training feeling more informed about child development and significantly less informed about administrative reality. The New South Wales Foster Care Guide was designed to fill precisely this gap — not to replace the training, but to be the practical workbook that complements it.

Post-Authorisation Training: LINKS and Beyond

Training doesn't stop after authorisation. The NSW system provides ongoing professional development for carers through several programs.

LINKS training. The LINKS Trauma Healing Service provides advanced therapeutic skills training for carers managing children with complex behaviours. It builds on the foundation of Shared Stories, Shared Lives and goes deeper into practical intervention techniques for carers supporting children with significant trauma histories.

Agency-specific training. Most NGOs run their own supplementary workshops — on topics like managing school behaviour, supporting adolescent identity development, or navigating the court process. Ask your agency what is available and whether it's free for authorised carers.

Mandatory refresher training. All authorised carers in NSW are subject to annual review, and your authorisation can include training completion as a condition. Keep records of all training you complete — it matters during your Annual Carer Review.

Cultural competency training. If you are a non-Aboriginal carer looking after an Aboriginal child, your agency should provide additional cultural support and training, including guidance on implementing a Cultural Support Plan.

How to Approach the Training

The carers who get the most out of Shared Stories, Shared Lives tend to be the ones who bring questions. The training is not a passive information download — it is interactive and includes group discussion, case studies, and reflection exercises.

Come prepared to discuss why you want to foster, what your own childhood experiences were, and how you manage stress. You will be asked to think about difficult scenarios. The discomfort is not accidental — it is preparing you for the real discomfort of caring for a child who has been through trauma.

The training is also an opportunity to meet other prospective carers. Some of the most useful support in foster care comes not from agencies but from peer carers who are going through the same experiences. The relationships you form during training can last for years.

Starting your journey with a clear understanding of what training covers — and what it doesn't — means you can use your time in the program well, and fill the gaps before your first placement arrives.

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