Foster Carer Training Online in Australia: What's Available and What to Expect

Training is not optional in Australian foster care. Before you're approved, you'll complete a mandatory preparation program. After approval, ongoing professional development is a condition of maintaining your carer registration. The question is how much of this can be done online, what format the training takes, and what it actually covers.

The answer varies by state and territory, because foster care in Australia is a state-managed system. Here's how it works nationally, with specific detail on Tasmania.

National Frameworks: PRIDE and "Step by Step"

Two training frameworks dominate the Australian foster care landscape.

PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education) is an internationally developed program used by some Australian states and territories, including versions adapted for the Australian context. It covers the competencies prospective carers need: attachment, loss and grief, cultural awareness, working with birth families, and supporting child development. Some agencies run adapted PRIDE programs as their carer preparation course.

"Step by Step" is the carer assessment framework — not a training program itself, but a structured tool used by assessors during the home study process. It draws on your reflections on the training material and your own life experience. Most states that use Step by Step pair it with a preparation training program.

Tasmania: The "Shared Lives" Program

In Tasmania, the mandatory preparation training for foster and kinship carers is called Shared Lives. It is designed to help applicants determine whether fostering is right for them before committing to the full assessment process.

Shared Lives is delivered by DECYP and the authorised NGO providers (Anglicare Tasmania, Life Without Barriers, Baptcare, Key Assets). Key content areas include:

• Trauma-informed care: How early childhood trauma affects brain development, attachment, and behaviour. This is not abstract — carers learn specific strategies for responding to common trauma-related behaviours.
• Working with birth families: The emotional and practical complexity of maintaining Family Time while providing a stable placement.
• Cultural safety: Specific content on Tasmania's Aboriginal community and the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, including the obligations of non-Aboriginal carers caring for Aboriginal children.
• Managing challenging behaviour: Therapeutic responses to dysregulation, using approaches that support the child's nervous system rather than triggering it further.

Is Shared Lives available online? Partly. DECYP and some agencies have moved toward hybrid delivery — some sessions are conducted online via video conferencing, others remain face-to-face. The home visit and assessment components of the approval process are always conducted in person. If you're asking because you're in a regional area and travel to a training centre is difficult, contact your preferred agency directly — they typically have flexible delivery options for regional and remote carers.

Online Training for Approved Carers

Once you're approved, ongoing training is required. The specific requirements vary by agency, but most approved carers in Tasmania are expected to complete a minimum number of training hours per year as part of their registration maintenance.

Available online options include:

E-learning through agency portals: Life Without Barriers, Anglicare, and other large NGOs provide access to online training modules for their carers. Topics range from medication management to restrictive practices to cultural competency refreshers.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS): Publishes free, high-quality online resources on trauma-informed care, attachment, FASD, and child development. These are not formal training hours, but they are substantive professional learning.

Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI): A structured training program used by several agencies to give carers skills for managing escalating situations. Some components are available online; the physical safety components are always face-to-face.

Autism-specific training: Several national organisations offer online autism awareness and care training suitable for foster carers. If a child with ASD is placed with you, your agency should facilitate access to relevant training — request it if it's not offered.

Training for Kinship Carers

Kinship carers — grandparents, aunts and uncles, family friends — are sometimes approved under an expedited process when a child needs urgent placement with a known person. This can mean that full preparation training is completed after the child is already in the home.

If this is your situation, push for training to be prioritised early. Caring for a child with trauma history without preparation training is significantly harder, and the training provides tools you'll use immediately.

FASD-Specific Training

Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is particularly prevalent among children in out-of-home care. It is frequently undiagnosed and is often misread as deliberate defiance, laziness, or emotional immaturity. Several Australian organisations provide FASD-specific training for carers:

• NOFASD Australia offers online modules specifically for foster and kinship carers
• AIFS has published detailed FASD resources relevant to out-of-home care
• Some state-based FASD networks run regular free webinars

If your agency hasn't raised FASD training as part of your preparation, raise it yourself. The number of children in care who have been prenatally exposed to alcohol is significant, and understanding FASD changes how you interpret and respond to behaviour.

Tasmania-Specific Consideration: Regional Access

In Tasmania's North-West — the region around Burnie, Devonport, and beyond — access to in-person training is more limited than in Hobart or Launceston. Travel times are real, and agency staff are spread more thinly. If you're applying through an agency with a regional presence, ask specifically what training will be available close to home versus what will require travel.

If the answer doesn't work for your life, it's worth considering whether a different agency with better regional delivery capacity might be a better fit.

Training is the foundation of confident, effective foster care — not a bureaucratic hoop. The Tasmania Foster Care Guide covers what to expect from Shared Lives training, how the assessment process uses what you learn, and how to continue building your skills after your first placement.

See more Australia guides →