Professional quality of life of Australian Mockingbird FamilyTM foster carers: Compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress.

• Supporting foster carers is important given the role demands and expectations inherent in their daily work, however many may experience burnout and secondary traumatic stress leading to carer attrition and children's placement instability. • The Mockingbird FamilyTM is a promising model involving collective foster caring. It shows potential to support foster carers, thereby strengthening and stabilizing the environment of children and young people in care. • We measured the Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) of foster carers in the Mockingbird FamilyTM in Australia and compared their ProQOL with foster carers caring as usual. We showed that Mockingbird FamilyTM model may have positive associations with improvements in compassion satisfaction and reductions in compassion fatigue among carers. Children's behaviours and support system typology are potential predictors of foster carer compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress (i.e., Professional Quality of Life, ProQOL). Little is known about the ProQOL of Mockingbird FamilyTM foster carers compared to foster carers caregiving as usual. This study aimed to: Examine ProQOL of Mockingbird FamilyTM carers compared to other carers; Explain associations between ProQOL, demographic characteristics, and determinants of ProQOL. Participants and setting: Two groups were studied: Mockingbird FamilyTM carers (n = 27) and other carers (n = 89) of children < 18yrs. The sample was drawn from a single registered foster care agency following implementation of the Mockingbird FamilyTM in Australia. Cross-sectional, comparative mixed method design. Participants completed self-report questionnaires incorporating demographic questions, ProQOL instrument developed by Stamm (2010), and qualitative questions, analysed using SPSS 28.01 and thematically. Pearson correlation, t -test and ANOVA showed Mockingbird FamilyTM carers had a better ProQOL compared to carers caregiving as usual, with associations identified between ProQOL and socio-demographic aspects including gender, ProQOL and foster caring experience, and ProQOL and carers' engagement of the children in community activities. Qualitative data showed that communication, relevance of training, and the quality of statutory and agency supports to members of the Mockingbird FamilyTM were key determinants of ProQOL. Our findings showed that the Mockingbird FamilyTM model of foster care may improve the ProQOL of carers, compared to carers undertaking caregiving as usual. We recommend further research to examine associations with placement breakdown and carer attrition rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]