I read with interest the editorial entitled Homes Away From Children's Homes (October 28).

I am currently holidaying in Malta. I was born in Malta and live in Sydney where I have held the position of chief executive officer of a child welfare agency called Stretch-A-Family (www.stretchafamily.com.au) for the past 18 years.

In Sydney the large Church- and state-run institutions that cared for homeless children were all disbanded during the mid-1990s. There is a focus on family restoration, and kinship care, however there are still children who need to be cared for outside of their families of origin. The NSW Children's Guardian prohibits a child under the age of 12 living in residential care, unless there are extenuating circumstances. Institutions have been replaced with foster care including professional or specialised foster care, and with small group homes run by professional and trained staff. These homes care for no more than six young people aged 12 or over - usually until such time as they can be restored to families or fostered with another family.

The question of adoption is also hotly debated in Sydney where there are also moves afoot to change laws to enable younger children with no hope of being restored to their families to be adopted. Open adoptions are gaining popularity, a situation where the child can retain their sense of identity and some contact with the family of origin but become a part of a new family.

The editorial stated that that there has been a drive to increase fostering but that the financial burden on the foster parents is heavy. I agree wholeheartedly that funding for foster care needs to be made available especially since foster care is really the best option for older children who cannot be restored to their own families. Stretch-A-Family is a non-denominational NGO but we are heavily funded by the government and we pay our foster carers of teenagers very generously. The rate of payment is determined by the level of need of the child but the least that our carers receive is $390AUD (about €800) a week to care for a teenager with medium intensity needs. High needs carers receive up to $660AUD a week. This makes caring for another person's child a worthwhile professional venture. Some may argue that these people do it for the money and not for the love of the child but my many years of experience have shown that these people invest a lot of themselves into these children and I have several shining examples of foster grandparents continuing to consider the fostered child a part of the family well beyond the time when the young person leaves their care.

Foster carers also continue to receive ongoing support by the agency supervising the placement. This includes regular visits, annual case conferencing and a review of the child's care plan, and a review of the carer's license on an annual basis.

Ongoing training is also provided and carers who are paid as professionals must act as professionals and participate actively in all these processes.

I wholeheartedly support the call to the Maltese government to start the process of de-institutionalisation for Malta's children who need out-of-home care. Changing the adoption laws may well be the answer for younger children but the creation of small residential care units and a complete review of issues surrounding foster care is desperately needed. If Malta is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, then Malta has a serious obligation to these children.

Do the children who are victims of the breakdown of their family unit deserve any less than to grow up in a normal and loving family? Are they less valuable to the nation? If Malta is a humane parent, it must rise to the challenge and invest heavily in these children to give them as near as possible to an equal chance in life as their more fortunate peers.