Opinion: Why Malta's Foster Carers Deserve Professional Partnership Status

Two foster care advocates argue Malta's system needs urgent reform. John Rolé and Edgar Galea Curmi contend that children experience placement instability and experienced carers leave the system because the state continues to treat the adults who open their homes to vulnerable children as subordinates executing policy rather than as essential partners whose judgment and expertise should directly shape outcomes.

Why Advocates Believe This Matters

According to Rolé and Galea Curmi, several structural issues demand attention:

• Placement instability and trauma: The advocates argue that when carers leave, children experience displacement. They point to concerns that without sufficient homes, some may spend time in temporary arrangements rather than family environments, compounding pre-existing losses.

• Financial pressures on carers: The authors note that living costs in Malta have risen sharply, yet foster allowances remain static—a gap now widely addressed internationally with indexed increases and placement-complexity supplements.

• Exclusion from decisions erodes trust: Rolé and Galea Curmi report that carers often learn of care plan changes after finalization, which they argue undermines both professional standing and collaborative relationships essential to child stability.

The Structural Gap: Malta's Bureaucratic Approach

Rolé and Galea Curmi argue that foster care occupies an unusual bureaucratic space globally, but nowhere more acutely than in Malta. A teacher, social worker, or therapist receives employment contracts, salary scales, and recognized professional standing. A foster carer, by contrast, operates in legal and financial ambiguity. They exercise profound responsibility—managing behavioral crises, addressing medical needs, shaping attachment relationships—yet possess minimal formal authority over routine decisions.

The advocates contend that this structural invisibility produces concrete harm. A carer who feels dismissed is more likely to withdraw. When that happens, they argue, the child loses continuity. Attachment fractures. New assessments begin. Another placement opens. The cycle perpetuates, and the cost far exceeds what transparent partnership would have required.

International Models: What Malta Could Consider

The authors point to international reforms now underway to illustrate what alternative approaches look like. The United Kingdom's "Renewing Fostering" action plan, formally launched by the Department for Education in February 2026, repositions carers from functionaries to co-professionals. The framework clarifies what carers should autonomously decide: haircuts, medical appointments, school choices, overnight trips. This shift—termed delegated authority—removes bureaucratic friction that currently forces carers to seek approval for ordinary parenting decisions.

Rolé and Galea Curmi cite the New South Wales experience as another model. In early 2026, the government implemented a 20% increase to foster and kinship carer allowances, the first substantial adjustment in over 20 years. The justification was based on actual expenses of raising a traumatized child—psychiatric medication, specialized therapy sessions, replaced clothing and furniture following behavioral incidents, higher food costs due to dietary restrictions—which had outpaced statutory rates.

The authors argue Malta faces similar economic pressures. They note that Valletta and Sliema housing costs now rival southern European capitals, electricity and heating bills climb annually, and food prices reflect European inflation. Yet carers receive the same allowances as previous years. Rolé and Galea Curmi suggest this creates a filter: individuals with supplementary income sources remain; those without external financial buffers leave.

The Ohio model, according to the advocates, pairs financial increases with targeted support. Carers receive differential stipends reflecting placement complexity and access trauma-informed training designed specifically for their situations.

Communication as Professional Respect

Rolé and Galea Curmi identify a recurring complaint across jurisdictions: carers' voices disappear into bureaucracy. Phone calls go unreturned. Emails languish in queues. The authors argue this signals that the carer's observations—typically the most accurate, timely information about a child's day-to-day wellbeing—are not valued.

Wales addressed this through the Foster Carers' Charter, formally embedded in legislative reform. The framework mandates responsive communication and positions carer involvement as non-negotiable in planning processes. Rather than hierarchical authority flowing downward, information circulates among the child, carer, social worker, and relevant family members.

The UK's regional fostering hubs, now operational across multiple authorities, reduce administrative friction through intermediaries. Hub coordinators field inquiries and facilitate communication between carer and caseworker. Rolé and Galea Curmi suggest that given Malta's small, centralized governance structure, a single national hub could theoretically function even more efficiently.

Kinship Care: The Invisible Majority

Most policy discussions focus on formal foster placements, yet a parallel system operates largely outside official recognition: kinship care. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins step in when parents cannot function. The authors note this arrangement reflects Malta's extended family culture. It is normative and widespread. It is also almost entirely unsupported.

Globally, this is shifting. The US Foster Kinship Navigator model provides peer-professional support to kinship caregivers. The UK's Special Guardianship Orders formalize kinship arrangements and provide financial support. In New South Wales, the 2026 allowance increase explicitly includes kinship carers.

Rolé and Galea Curmi argue that for Malta, formalizing kinship support acknowledges how extended families already function—culturally rooted and practically essential—while providing carers with tools and financial stability.

The Caseworker Constraint

The authors note that the systemic failure to partner with carers often reflects constraints on the professionals managing the system. Social workers carrying 15–30 active cases simultaneously lack time for the relationship-building and collaborative planning that partnership requires. Staff turnover compounds the problem; as soon as a carer develops trust with a caseworker, reassignment disrupts continuity.

Rolé and Galea Curmi point out that international reforms address this frontally. Wales's Health and Social Care Act, operationalized in April 2026, redirected funding away from administrative overhead toward frontline workers and services. The philosophical move is notable: investment in carer support is treated as equivalent to investment in child welfare outcomes.

The advocates argue this implies difficult resource choices for Malta: whether child welfare funds flow primarily to bureaucratic infrastructure or to worker capacity and carer support.

Practical Steps the Authors Recommend Malta Consider

Rolé and Galea Curmi suggest several 2026 reforms that are readily transferable and do not require lengthy policy development:

• A national fostering charter, modeled on Wales's version, would formalize carer involvement in planning and decision-making, requiring documented communication and consultation before significant changes.

• A delegated authority framework would clarify which decisions carers can make independently. Rather than seeking permission for a school trip or medical appointment, carers act within established parameters and report back.

• A fostering coordination center, even as an initially modest operation, could field inquiries, connect carers to peer networks, and function as an ombudsman-level presence when communication breakdowns occur.

• An allowance review, conducted transparently using actual cost-of-living data, would signal state acknowledgment of financial reality. Coupled with targeted supplements for complex placements—teenagers, sibling groups, children with medical or behavioral complexity—this could incentivize placements currently hard to fill.

The Partnership Argument

According to Rolé and Galea Curmi, treating carers as partners is functional, not merely sentimental. Systems that genuinely value carers produce better retention, lower placement instability, and consequently better outcomes for children. They reference evidence from the UK, Australia, North America, and within-system evaluations comparing partnership-oriented services to traditional hierarchical models.

The authors conclude that Malta has access to these findings. The question now, they argue, is whether policymakers will act. They contend the current approach—bureaucratic control masking as management—produces neither efficiency nor quality outcomes. The alternative, they maintain, is not radical or untested. It is operational in multiple democracies with comparable governance structures and comparable challenges.