Continuous learning

Foster and Kinship Care Agencies will work with carers to update a learning plan to reflect the carer's learning and development needs.

Continuous learning modules may be provided by your agency or you may access available training externally from a range of providers within the community.

Kinship carers and long-term guardians may also access continuous learning modules to support their care of a child or young person.

Discover continuous learning training opportunities available to all carers below or contact your foster and kinship care service for more details.

As the Peak body for foster and kinship carers, QFKC provide training for carers, agencies and Child Safety staff on a requirement basis.
To view all training provided by QFKC their Training page.
Evolve Therapeutic Services (ETS) (Queensland Health) works with Child safety to offer intensive, trauma-informed mental health care for children in care with severe and complex needs. ETS provides coordinated support to improve children’s emotional wellbeing and skills. It also promotes collaborations between agencies to create a consistent support network and ensure effective resource use.
ETS provides carers with free specialist training and professional development including workshops, seminars, self-paced learning and presentations. They hold statewide online training sessions for carers every school term.
ETS training covers various topics, including trauma, abuse and attachment, trauma-informed care, grief and loss, child development, neurobiological development, mental health assessment, diagnosis, medication, mental health treatment and intervention, harmful sexual behaviours, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and the needs of children in care. It also focuses on collaborative practice among stakeholders.
You can find current online training events at Evolve Therapeutic Services virtual workshops. (PDF, 716 KB) Within this document you will also find extra resources on trauma informed care and child protection.
All sessions are open to everyone in the sector, including foster and kinship carers, residential staff, Child Safety and Education unless otherwise stated. This calendar is in addition to the locally developed ETS training calendars, which include face-to-face and online sessions tailored to local needs. For further details, contact your local ETS team.
Find additional trauma informed and child protection resources. Scroll to the bottom to find ETS resources, which are designed for the entire child protection sector, not just health workers.
Parentline provides free online e-resources to help parents and carers understand and talk about cyberbullying and its effects on children and young people.
Access these resources from Parentline’s cyberbullying page.
The Raising Children Network is funded by the Australian Government, offers free, up-to-date information for families. While mainly for parents, the information is also useful carers..
It provides a variety of free resources like articles, videos and interactive tools for different age groups including:
There are also specific resources for autism and children with disabilities.
Carer Gateway is an Australian Government program offering free services and support for carers of people with disabilities, medical conditions, mental illnesses or age related frailty. While specifically for foster or kinship carers, they provide transferable resources, including free online carer skills courses.
Their free carer skills course focuses on enhancing the carers health and wellbeing. The course consists of six modules, each taking 20 to 40 minutes to complete.
Emerging Minds offers free resources and courses to support mental health and wellbeing for Australian infants, children, adolescents, and their families. These are available for carers, families and professionals.
Explore a variety of resources for carers and families at Emerging Minds Family Resource Library. You can watch, listen to or read these materials.
Engaging children with communication challenges webinar helps carers and families understand the strengths and challenges affecting the mental health of children with complex communication needs. It offers suggestions practices to support and engage these children.
Supporting children with complex trauma part 1 and part 2 is a podcast about how speech pathologists help children who have experienced complex trauma.
Emerging Minds Learning offers courses for carers and professionals on topics like child and infant mental health, social issues, trauma and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wellbeing.
The National Organisation for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (NOFASD) is the peak body supporting people and families living with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) across Australia.
Find specific resources for parents, carers and families.
There are also additional resources for those supporting children in out-of-home care.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse emphasized the importance of organisations understanding and addressing the risk of child sexual abuse.
In response, Life Without Barriers created The Sexual Safety Series, which includes six short videos (3-6 minutes each) on topics like respectful relationships, consent, sexual abuse and sexual assault, intimate images, sexual exploitation, and pornography. These videos help carers talk to children and young people about the risk of sexual abuse and assault.
Watch these videos:
The Department of Justice and Attorney-General has launched two on-line training courses that explore coercive control and the new coercive control legislation which commenced on 26 May 2025.
- Module 1, takes 50 minutes to complete and teaches what coercive control is, how to identify signs of this behaviour and how it affects victim-survivors.
- Module 2, takes 30 minutes to complete and covers the changes to the law, it gives an overview of the criminal justice system in Queensland, lists the help and legal choices victim-survivors have, and what might happen to a person who uses violence.
- Both courses are available for free.
- To sign up for this training, visit the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research (QCDFVR) website.
- You will receive an email with a link to activate your account after registration. Click this link and follow the prompts to set up your account with your email and a password.
- With registration complete, you can login at any time using your email address and password to access either of the two training modules.
The Association of Children's Welfare Agencies (ACWA) is the NSW peak body for non-government community organisations that deliver services to vulnerable children, young people and their families. ACWA provides free resources for carers, children and young people in care.
Carers can access factsheets and online training videos to help them understand and manage online safety with children and young people. These resources were co-designed with carers and informed by children and young people in care, providing valuable insights into carers’ first-hand experiences.
Trauma Responsive Practice in Education is an online training program developed by the Australian Childhood Foundation and the Government of South Australia. It uses the latest research on trauma from abuse and was originally designed for school and early childhood professionals. However, it is also useful for foster and kinship carers and child protection workers.
This online course covers the neurobiology of trauma and provides a framework for responding to children and young people who have experienced trauma. It focuses on trauma responsive practice for a child’s learning and development.
This course teaches:
- an overview of trauma and its impact on child development
- principles of trauma responsive practice
- creative and practical strategies to help children and young people recover from trauma
- how to consider risks to children and young people within trauma responsive practice
- ways to collaborate with others to support vulnerable children and young people effectively.
- To register, visit the Trauma Responsive Practice in Education program webpage.
- This program costs $33.00. paid you can start learning immediately.
- It consists of 11 self-paced modules, which you can complete at your convenience.
- After registering, you can log in at any time with your email and password.