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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (7 August) . . Page.. 2428 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

There are also recommendations regarding the need to adequately resource and fund services required following the completion of the framework for students at risk and the assessment of need. So there is a recommendation there about the importance of properly funding what comes out of the work that this committee is recommending be done.

We have also once again raised the question of counsellors and welfare support in schools, and the importance of providing that support in a flexible way. There are not enough counsellors in the system for students at our schools. That has come up in several inquiries that we have had in this place over the last five or six years.

There is also a need to have counselling support which is separate from the school counselling system. There were some issues brought to the attention of the committee in terms of confidentiality concerns. There is a lot of communication going on within a school community, which of course is good to some extent. However, it is not good if it means that the student cannot feel comfortable about disclosing very personal information to a counsellor for fear of that information moving through the more general school staff. So there is a really important need to have other ways of accessing welfare and counselling support.

We have also raised the question of poverty. We want to see that acknowledged as quite a serious issue for students who are experiencing poverty. It will have considerable impact on their ability to be successful in the school system. That has to be looked at quite clearly and identified as a problem and an indicator for students at risk of not completing school.

The question of home/school communication also came up once again. While we were looking particularly at adolescents and young adults at risk of not achieving satisfactory education, the committee heard very strong evidence, as is always the case when you look at these issues, that we should be identifying these children before they get to the point of being adolescents or young adults. The intervention or prevention is going to be most effective at the youngest age possible, and we need to be getting in and supporting families from early on. We have commented on that in this report, even though we have particularly focused on responses for the students at risk at a later stage of their schooling. The relationship between home and school is very critical at whatever age the student is.

We have also made a recommendation regarding the need to have a comprehensive look at substance abuse issues. We have asked that a drug and alcohol task force be set up. That is a recommendation which reflects a broader concern in the community that has come up in other forums, but in this committee it was raised as an issue; that the young people who are abusing substances of various kinds, or whose parents are abusing substances of various kinds, are also definitely at risk of not completing their education. It is an important social issue that has to be addressed in a very holistic way. I think that will be something that is going to be brought up again in this place, hopefully before the end of this Assembly. I hope that we do see a bipartisan commitment to having a good look at how we can ensure there is a collaborative approach to issues of substance abuse, because if we could do that more effectively than we are now we will actually see the potential for breaking cycles of disadvantage which are very destructive in the long-term for the community.

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