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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4701 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

This is an issue in which there is great interest in the community. The committee received 37 written submissions. Forty individuals or groups came to see the committee for public hearings, some more than once, and 10 for in-camera hearings. I would like to acknowledge particularly the Australian Education Union, which employed a consultant to carry out a survey of teachers, counsellors and welfare officers. Issues raised in submissions included the ACT's high youth unemployment, which is resulting in many young people feeling they are facing a bleak future. It is of grave concern that we have a significant group of young people who are experiencing mental illness and are becoming involved in the drug culture. As our report on mental health services found, there are few specialised mental health services for young people in the ACT.

It is also of grave concern that drug education is inconsistent in our community and schools and that we are losing too many of our young people to drug overdoses. Drug overdose, or drug use, is not just connected with mental illness in our society. It is part of experimentation often seen by some psychologists as normal behaviour. We cannot put our heads in the sand any longer and pretend that if we just say no to drugs our young people will therefore not use them and that if we say no strongly enough we will have solved the problem. We must address this issue as a community and we must acknowledge that harm minimisation is essential as an approach. Youth suicide is indicative of a crisis in our youth culture, and as a community we must take responsibility and work together to find ways to support our young people and help them find meaning and value in their lives. Most young people who are homeless or in substitute care have experienced abuse of some kind. We must not blame them for their distress. We must recognise that, in most instances, if antisocial behaviour is exhibited it is the result of abuse by close and trusted people and also, unfortunately, quite often abuse by the system which is supposed to support them.

We do not see well-coordinated, flexible and well-resourced services in place. We see gaps in the system, and too many young people fall through them. A lack of appropriate accommodation options for children at risk was highlighted by many submissions for children in care and out of care. I was interested to see in the recent publication on Housing Minister Stefaniak producing some more credible figures on the rate of homelessness in the ACT. I think it is of the utmost importance that we put a real effort into addressing this serious social problem. Shelter is a basic need, and without it people are extremely vulnerable.

While the ACT is praised for having high retention rates in our education system, according to the Australian Education Union submission, 4,000 students in the ACT education system are at risk - that is, they have behaviour and/or gaps in learning which seriously limit their chances of achievement and success at school and which also interfere with the education of other students. There are also 400 students who are seriously at risk. They are at risk of not finishing school, of being neglected or preyed upon, of being abused, of committing suicide or otherwise dying, of being permanently dependent on social security or of being incarcerated.

For effective early intervention and prevention, schools must be recognised as key agencies for identifying young people at risk. However, teachers are not social workers, and as support agencies are not adequately linked to schools this opportunity is often lost. Systems which ensure continuity of care and support are also not adequately in place,

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