Page 1238 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 2021
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professionals working every day with the best interests of children and young people at the forefront of their considerations.
Since 2012 the ACT government has delivered record investments, through successive budgets, to support a substantial reform agenda and to ensure that the child protection system is better resourced and our staff are better supported to undertake this essential work with Canberra’s most complex families.
In 2012-13 the ACT budget allocated almost $1.2 million a year towards increasing the frontline workforce by 10 frontline positions, to increase capacity in the system to manage demand. This funding increased to almost $1.5 million each year for an additional two full-time equivalent positions in the 2014-15 financial year.
In response to the growing number of child concern reports being received from the community, the 2017-18 budget further committed $2½ million a year to establish two additional frontline casework teams. In the 2016-17 ACT budget almost $2½ million was allocated through the Safer Families package to enhance quality assurance of child protection services through a case analysis team within CYPS and the development of an independent child and youth protection quality assurance and improvement committee, now known as the Strengthening Practice Committee.
The establishment of the case analysis team has been a key platform for improving decision-making and the quality of case management. This team provides independent analysis of individual cases at key decision-making points. The independent case analysis allows case managers to think about the long-term cumulative impact of abuse and neglect and ensures that the voice of the child is at the centre of the work. The case analysis also explores the risks and vulnerabilities to a child’s safety.
The Strengthening Practice Committee was established to strengthen the quality of child protection practice in the ACT and to foster ongoing improvement of the child protection system. The committee acts as an advisory committee, including independent interstate experts, to drive a culture of practice improvement to ensure better outcomes are achieved for children whose safety is at risk from abuse and neglect.
In addition, the complaints and client services team was established in May 2018 with a focus on internal complex case matters and complaints. The complaints and client services team engages directly with parents, carers, schools and community organisations as an independent point of contact on CYPS decisions, and can provide feedback on the rationale for decisions and provide complaint resolution processes as required.
Additional funding was provided in the 2018-19 budget to establish the Family Group Conferencing program, to fund the Our Booris, Our Way review, establish and fund the Functional Family Therapy program—a partnership between Gugan Gulwan and OzChild—and to increase staffing and support into the adoption and permanency teams within CYPS to achieve increasing numbers of permanency orders for children in long-term, stable kinship and foster care placements.
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