Tasmania Kinship Carer Support — Payments, Paperwork and Programs

You Took In a Child You Didn't Expect to Raise. The System Expects You to Figure It Out Alone.

Centrelink says you need secondary evidence. The school wants proof of guardianship. The doctor asks who has parental responsibility. And no one — not DECYP, not Centrelink, not the school office — gives you a single list of what you actually need to bring.

You're raising someone else's child on a pension or a part-time wage, and the system that's supposed to help is scattered across three levels of government, two phone lines and a dozen web portals that each answer one question but never the next one.

The Tasmania Kinship Carer Paperwork System

This guide doesn't just explain what's available — it gives you a system to assemble everything you need, in the right order, before you pick up the phone or walk into an office.

The Tasmania Kinship Carer Paperwork System is built around three tools that sit at the heart of the guide:

• The Tasmanian Kinship Agency Map — a clear breakdown of exactly which organisation covers your area: Baptcare (North and South West), Mission Australia (North West and South East), the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, SETAC, and where each service boundary falls. No more calling the wrong office.
• The Informal Care Evidence Assembly Checklist — every piece of secondary proof that Centrelink accepts for non-parent claims without a court order: statutory declarations, immunisation records, school principal statements, doctor letters, and more. Laid out step by step so you can gather what you have and know exactly what's missing.
• The Agency Contact and Notice Log — a running record of every phone call, reference number, document submitted and follow-up deadline across Centrelink, DECYP and Medicare. When you need to call back and explain what happened three weeks ago, you have it written down.

What's Inside

• Centrelink payments and how to claim them — Family Tax Benefit Parts A and B, Parenting Payment, the Additional Child Care Subsidy at the Grandparent rate (up to 100% of fees with no activity test), Double Orphan Pension, and Carer Allowance. Each payment has the eligibility rules, the forms, the evidence and the step-by-step claim process.
• The formal-versus-informal care distinction explained — why your arrangement type matters, what changes if DECYP is involved versus a private family arrangement, and how a federal parenting order affects your entitlements differently from a state care order.
• School enrolment without a court order — how to use DECYP's exceptional circumstances criteria for out-of-area enrolment, what evidence the school needs, how to apply for the Student Assistance Scheme (STAS) for fee relief, and the Spectacles Assistance Scheme.
• Medical consent as a kinship carer — what Tasmanian clinics accept for routine care, when you need formal authority for major treatment, and a preparation worksheet so the practice has everything at the first visit.
• Payment interactions and overlap — how multiple payments work together, what happens when care percentages change, and why claiming one benefit can affect another.
• Disputes, reviews and appeals — how to challenge a Centrelink decision through the Authorised Review Officer and the Administrative Review Tribunal, and what the DECYP internal review process looks like.
• Tasmania's free support services mapped — the Community Kinship Care Program, Centrelink's Grandparent, Foster and Kinship Carer Advisers (1800 245 900), Tasmania Legal Aid, the Hobart Community Legal Service, and the peer support group Kin Raising Kids Tasmania. Every phone number, every referral pathway.
• Care transition planning — what happens when a child returns to a parent, turns 18, or moves interstate, and how to protect your benefit continuity and avoid overpayment debts.

Who This Guide Is For

• Grandparents in Tasmania raising a grandchild after a parent's addiction, imprisonment, illness or death
• Aunts, uncles, older siblings or family friends who have taken on a child with little or no notice
• Adult children helping a parent navigate the paperwork for a grandchild in their care
• Carers in regional Tasmania — Devonport, Burnie, the West Coast, King Island — who can't easily reach a Centrelink or Legal Aid office in person
• Anyone moving from an informal arrangement to a formal care order and wanting to understand what changes

Why Not Just Use Free Resources?

Free help from Centrelink's Grandparent Advisers, Tasmania Legal Aid and the Community Kinship Care Program is genuinely valuable — and the guide lists every contact so you can use them.

But here's what free resources don't do: they don't give you a single document that combines federal Centrelink rules, Tasmanian DECYP school policies, regional community service boundaries and medical consent preparation into one organised reference. Centrelink answers Centrelink questions. Legal Aid answers legal questions. Neither will help you assemble the evidence file that makes both conversations shorter.

The guide prepares you for those free services so you walk in with everything ready — not asking what to bring.

What This Guide Does Not Do

This guide does not give legal advice, custody recommendations, or predict what Centrelink or DECYP will decide. It does not contain official government forms or claim any agency connection. If you need help with a custody dispute, the guide directs you to Tasmania Legal Aid (1300 366 611) — that's their job, not ours.

Purchasing the guide does not guarantee eligibility for any payment or program. Government decisions depend on your circumstances, assessed by government officials under their own rules.

Full Refund, No Time Limit

If the guide isn't what you need, email [email protected] for a full refund — no time limit, no questions.

A free checklist is also available: a one-page summary of the payments, paperwork and support services to check first. Download it with no purchase required, and decide later whether the full guide would help.

You stepped up for this child. Let the guide handle the paperwork.