Page 1282 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 2021
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There is an important saying that “We do the best we can,” and, following on from that, “When we know better, we need to do better.” The time to do better is clearly now. Let us give care leavers better opportunities to be happy and successful. Tasmania and South Australia have made clear commitments to go beyond merely discretionary supports by extending out of home care to age 21. Western Australia is currently piloting this approach and in November the Victorian government announced that from 1 January 2021, all young people turning 18 years of age and due to leave care will be able to remain with their foster carer or kinship carer, supported by an allowance, case work and flexible funding; or, for those leaving residential care, to transition to other housing options—for example, private rental—supported by an allowance, case work and flexible funding.
These important life-changing innovations have been backed by the national Home Stretch Campaign, which has powerfully made the argument for universally extending out of home care to age 21. Part of this campaign has been commissioned research demonstrating the cost benefit of doing so. In Canberra, the assumed benefit cost ratio of such a program is 1.77—that is, is every dollar invested in the program is associated with an expected return of $1.77 in either savings or increased income. The same study estimates that universal access to extended out of home care could be provided in the ACT for an annual cost of under $900,000. Research indicates that extending out of home care halves the probability of care leavers falling into homelessness.
In 2018-19, government funding for youth homelessness support in the ACT was $5,250,038. Clearly, reducing the risk that a care leaver will end up sleeping in bus interchanges and under pedestrian overpasses is not only very good for kids, but will, overtime, pay for itself. The Canberra Liberals went to the election last year with a strong commitment to universally extend out of home care in the territory to age 21. I am pleased to see that the agreement between ACT Labor and the ACT Greens includes a pledge to improve the extended care system for 18 to 21-year-olds in the out of home care system.
It is not yet clear, however, exactly what improving the current system for care leavers will look like. For that reason, I have today brought this motion before the Assembly to call on the ACT government to commit in principle to supporting the universal extension of care to age 21, including for those exiting residential care and those like the young man mentioned above, who are unable to remain with foster or kinship carers. Considering what is happening in the states around us, it should be clear that merely fiddling around the edges of the current approach will result in Canberra’s kids being left behind, possibly homeless, unemployed or even with physical and mental health issues.
In this important matter, we simply cannot afford to leave any young people behind; we need to walk with them. It is that simple. As I sought to make very clear a few minutes ago, we desperately need to improve data collection on young people who have exited care to allow for robust evaluation of post care support services, including any extension of care to age 21. We simply cannot afford to walk into what will be important reforms blinded by a lack of data. We need the data that will inform and
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