Page 3905 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 29 November 2022
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report. We know we must focus on supporting families early, before they enter crisis and before they find themselves at risk. Improving early support is also a key focus of the new Next Steps for Our Kids strategy. Our Booris, Our Way is the first of six domains under the strategy, ensuring the broader reform to our child protection system and associated family support services aligns with the important, existing work to deliver on the recommendations of the review.
In the 2022-23 budget we have committed $743,000 to establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander care and protection legal advocacy service within the Aboriginal Legal Service. The new service will enhance the accessibility of the care and protection and justice systems for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by strengthening access to culturally appropriate legal assistance and by promoting continued partnership with families and community agencies to keep children safely with their families, and at home.
We know that early supports are critical to preventing the need for crisis interventions and interaction with the statutory system. Connecting with families before they engage with the child protection system is vital. We are also undertaking a range of commissioning activities across areas that underpin parents’ capacity to keep their children safe at home—including housing, community support, and alcohol and other drug services.
Other key activities over the six months to the end of June 2022 include the family group conferencing community awareness campaign, which I launched in May to increase community awareness of family group conferencing. The campaign includes a short, animated YouTube video, a new website, and pamphlets with a QR code to link users directly to the family group conferencing website. A family group conferencing program is also being developed for expectant mothers. We are also continuing our work to enshrine the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child placement principle into the Children and Young People Act 2008.
SNAICC recently undertook consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members, including those in Wreck Bay; Aboriginal community operated services; mainstream service providers; and Child and Youth Protection Service—CYPS—staff. SNAICC facilitated workshops to build consensus on the best way to fully enshrine the principles in legislation, policy and practice. The findings from this consultation will be made available in a listening report as part of the final report expected by the end of the year.
In March I held a forum with representatives of local Aboriginal community control organisations to discuss options for establishing an ACCO to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families engaged with, or at risk of engaging with, statutory child protection. The initial focus is the provision of diversionary services to provide earlier support for families when they need it. The government will continue working closely with the local community on the best approach. As an early step we have committed just over $500,000 over two years through the National Agreement on Closing the Gap virtual funding pool to support Yerrabi Yurwang Child and Family Aboriginal Corporation to become a registered human
services provider.
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