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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 4050 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

I understand that its primary claims to fame - and I am now quoting from material which has been submitted to the department from a proponent of the centre - are that it caters for the development of a diverse group of children with special needs ranging in age from birth to school entry; that it has an open-door policy for parents in need of both specialised care for the children and respite in an environment of confidence that their children are in good hands; that there is a special philosophy of caring at the centre which encourages children with different special needs to learn positive skills from other children, that is, the children are not grouped according to disabilities; that there is also a high level of voluntarism which bonds child to parent and family to family; and that on Tuesdays and Wednesdays the centre operates individual therapy programs for children who require special needs therapy. When we looked at all that, I wonder whether it is really going to advance us any further on what we have at present.

Let us have a look at our own CHADS. It has in the order of 2,500 new clients from the ACT community referred to it annually, it provides 29,500 occasions of therapy, it offers 250 early educational placements to children with developmental delays or disabilities, it conducts 90 educational programs annually for other carers and service providers and it employs approximately 60 professional staff. In addition to these services, families with young children with disabilities may seek respite at any of the 11 ACT government-funded occasional-care centres across Canberra. Hands-on support for children with special needs is funded by the ACT Government and is available at these centres. Families may also access any long-day-care centre or family day-care scheme. Additional support is also provided through the Commonwealth supplementary support and special needs subsidy schemes.

To look further at the feasibility of establishing a centre such as the one suggested by Ms Reilly would be tantamount to seeking a cure for which there is really no disease, when the level of service already provided to children with special needs in the ACT, I believe, is already clearly far ahead of the service provided by that centre. I do not think Ms Reilly has established that there is any aspect of that centre which really offers a better service to children with special needs or to their families. Devoting resources to undertaking a further study - and I stress that it would be a further study because work was done on this over a period of a couple of months last year - would be a waste. Any funds that might be spent there would be better devoted to assessing the effectiveness of our existing service provision.

If no work had been done last year and if Mr Rozzoli and the other people had not contacted me and my office, it would be a good idea. It would certainly be very worthy of being looked into. I suggest to Ms Reilly that, given that work has been done, perhaps she should have a chat to Jill Farrelly, the appropriate person in the department, who could just take her through what has occurred. If she still feels that anything further could be usefully done, she can get back to me; but work has been done already and I do not really see any need for a further study.

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