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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3606 ..

MS GALLAGHER (continuing):

The decision regarding whether they should be employees of the school was drawn to my attention as being a concern of the community after the budget initiative was announced. Prior to that my view was-and still is; I have had discussions with the Youth Coalition and other community organisations about this-that the idea behind the youth support workers initiative was to provide support to the existing counselling services. It had arisen out of the review of the counselling services in schools that they were core functions of the school.

With my IR hat on, I had some problems with the outsourcing of those core functions. These were jobs that had been within the education department and should remain there. It is also important to know that the department currently employees about 70 youth workers across the portfolio, so it is not new territory for them in terms of providing those positions and those support services for young people.

In relation to the independence of youth workers, I have not made any final decision. I am certainly interested to hear back from the reference group about their ideas. I understand about the role of the young person as the primary client. I also understand the need for this initiative to work-the need for the model that has been implemented to have broad support. Otherwise, it will be a waste of time, and it is a positive initiative.

In my discussions with stakeholders, particularly from the community sector, I have given them the undertaking that we need to ensure that the model that is used in schools is acceptable, protects young people and encourages them to use this support in schools.

In relation to students at risk, the question was: how are we engaging them on the issue of how this could best be used? A couple of focus groups with students will be held, in addition to the reference group, about some ideas they have on how this initiative could work for them. Those are yet to be held. Once the model is agreed to, the idea is to have eight youth workers starting at the beginning of next year and going to the full 17 the year after and that the initial eight should be placed in schools with populations of disadvantaged young people at the moment. They should be given priority for those services next year.

We know that those schools are in receipt of a school equity fund and whether they have low enrolments but high proportions of disadvantage. Those schools have not been determined yet, but that is the idea about the location of the first eight.

MS TUCKER: Thank you for that answer. Can you also tell the Assembly what the caseload of the youth support workers will be in terms of their work with individual students? I am also interested to know whether an estimation has been made of the resource implications for the broader community sector as a result of referrals from these youth support workers.

MS GALLAGHER: I have been given a figure of up to 15 clients for the individual caseloads. When I saw that advice, I had some immediate questions about it. For example, if you are a youth worker in a school and quite a number-more than 15-of young people want to access you, how will you stop that? I will get back to you on whether that is an average estimation of a caseload.

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