Page 3174 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 18 October 2022
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other state and territory governments’ responsibilities and another area where growing the Aboriginal community-controlled sector is a priority.
The A Step Up for Our Kids 2015-2020 strategy oversaw significant investment and reform in the child protection system over around seven years. Despite the successes of this strategy, including stabilisation in the number of children in the statutory system, persistent issues remain, including the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in out of home care; gaps in educational and other life outcomes for young people with a care experience; increased child concern reporting, which is now at over 20,000 reports received each year; and fragmentation between the statutory services and our non-government partners who work more in the early intervention and family support space.
We know that we need to do more to improve service quality, compliance with legislative requirements, governance arrangements and, indeed, career satisfaction. To address these ongoing challenges, a renewed strategy, the Next Steps for Our Kids 2022-2030 strategy, was launched in June 2022. It builds on reforms to child protection and out of home care that commenced under A Step Up for Our Kids but also broadens the scope beyond the statutory system.
Next Steps will expand investment in targeted, culturally safe and therapeutic family support services and provide safe, stable living environments for children and young people who require out of home care. The Community Services Directorate is working with government and non-government stakeholders to develop the first four-year action plan, which will guide ongoing implementation of the strategy.
But many reform actions under the next step strategy are already underway. Guided by the Next Steps strategy, the government is in the process of recommissioning services in the out of home care system and family support systems. This budget provides funding of $32.3 million over four years to support this service system. This includes additional funding for six existing partner agencies to support ongoing and continuity of service provision for children, young people and families. There is funding to support the growth of Aboriginal community-controlled organisations and service delivery in the system, with an initial focus on diversionary services. I am very pleased that we were able to work with Yerrabi Yurwang on that.
There is funding to support the transition of a new therapeutic residential care provider. This includes over the next two years $4.96 million for highly intensive residential care placements, required where no other suitable placement can be identified. Of course, we also provide continued funding for Gugan Gulwan to continue to deliver functional family therapy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, in line with the existing commitment in response to the Our Booris, Our Way report. We have funding for staff to oversee the implementation of the strategy, in partnership with the community sector advocates and people with lived experience. Hearing those voices of children and young people, their families and carers, has been critical to the development of the strategy and will be critical to its implementation.
Both embedded within Next Steps and continuing to sit alongside it as an independent priority is the work to implement the recommendations of the Our Booris, Our Way review and to meet the intent of this review in addressing the drivers of Aboriginal
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