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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4706 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

young people feel in our community. It comes through in some of the responses by government and it comes through in the negative publicity that is generated through our media when a young person does something wrong. The huge number of young people contributing to our community receive very little publicity. At the same time the Government has been making utterances about how important young people and children are to our community. Yet there is a very maudlin response to the role of children and young people, and no action is taken to ensure that their lives can be fulfilling and that they have opportunities to develop to their full potential.

A large number of submissions from numerous organisations, individuals and government agencies said that services for young people in the ACT are fragmented. The total lack of coordination of services leads to confusion and misunderstanding and a lack of information about what is required and what is available. This lack of information was shown in a whole range of ways. There was a lack of understanding of the role of the Family Services Branch and a failure to understand that their major role is in child protection.

There is a whole range of other services. Numerous organisations play a very important role in delivering services to children and young people in the ACT. By offering a variety of service types, they increase the opportunity for more flexible approaches. But, without proper management to ensure that there is no duplication and to ensure that people know what services are available, there cannot be good service delivery. Children's services and youth services have run into the same problems as other community services within the ACT. They are caught up in the competition for grant dollars. This has had a major effect on the coordination of services, the availability of services and the development of innovative services within the ACT.

Everybody is so busy worrying about whether their grants will continue beyond the 12 months that the need to do important evaluation work internally and externally is lost. The way in which funding is managed has not assisted to improve services for young people and children. Organisations are working in the dark. What came through time and time again and forms part of a number of recommendations of this report is the lack of data and information on the services that are available, the demand for services, the turn-away rates and the framework for the delivery of community services as a whole, particularly services for children and young people.

The failure by this Government to have any sort of social plan is appalling. It creates a number of problems, not only in this area but across a whole range of areas, in getting strong, good community services which this community deserves. How can we work towards having a full and active community if they are not getting the assistance they should be getting from the Government in the form of information and leadership on the delivery of services?

There have been various attempts to get some sort of social plan going. There was a consultant running around early last year, having various meetings. We have never heard the results of those meetings. A social plan was discussed and commenced, but it does not seem to have gone anywhere. It seems to have disappeared without a trace. I am sure that quite a number of the organisations are extremely disappointed with that result. Some regional planning and data collection exercises were started in 1995.

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