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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1255 ..

secondary focus on addressing their psychosocial needs. This philosophy is largely that of the educational inclusion movement.

The message from the committee to this Assembly is that we need to be very careful about getting caught up in advancing the philosophy of inclusion in a particular instance when there is no evidence to support it. One academic commented on inclusivity as follows:

It sounds innovative. It sounds democratic. But this is not a perfect world. Screws drop out; things go wrong; promises are not fulfilled. Budgets are cut, and good intentions end up as empty promises. The Inclusion Movement is an innovative and exciting idea to be explored; it should not be a cult to be followed.

In closing, let me reiterate that inclusion should not be a cult to be followed. The ADU is doing a fantastic job, so let’s use some common sense and see whether we ought to have another program like it so that more young people can benefit from its approach.

Digressing a little, one of the success stories of the ADU is its size or lack thereof. It actually allows these marginalised young people to have their psychosocial needs addressed and prepares them for reintegration into mainstream education. If, for example, the department decided in its wisdom to double the size of the ADU, it would halve the effectiveness of that unit. In this case, size really does matter.

The committee felt that perhaps there should be another unit of similar size to this one located elsewhere in Canberra—for example on the north side or in the city—but would leave that to the department to determine on a needs basis. It is quite clear that there is a need in Tuggeranong and it is being satisfied by the Adolescent Day Unit.

The committee was very clear in the report about the contest of philosophy. I draw the attention of members to the section of the report in which we talk about that contest of philosophy. Really, it is a contest of the primacy of the philosophy, a contest of the primacy of what we treat first.

One philosophy espoused by an academic was that the kids need to be in mainstream education and then we can address their issues in the context of being involved in mainstream education—in other words, the educational imperative has primacy. The Adolescent Day Unit, on the other hand, believes that the psychosocial needs of the young people need to be addressed and then prepare them for reintegration. That means that the psychosocial needs have primacy.

In the contest as to which of the two philosophies is correct and whether education should have primacy over psychosocial needs, the committee found that primacy should be given to the psychosocial needs because the main aim there was to prepare the young person for reintegration into the mainstream system. The beauty of the system is that it works well.

Finally, I wish to convey the committee’s appreciation to those people who discussed the issue of the ADU with us, to the young people who revealed their lives, to the staff and to the young man, whose name escapes me at the moment, who went into that unit with psychosocial problems and numeracy and literacy issues and demonstrated to us through

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