Page 2236 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 23 June 2010
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assisting 20 families in the ACT at the moment. Demand for their support services is currently growing at 30 per cent per year. The Shepherd Centre is 25 per cent government funded and finds the remaining 75 per cent needed to maintain its services from fundraising.
Noah’s Ark has been providing services for families and children with disabilities for over 37 years and has over 650 enrolments in its programs and over 1,000 member families. They provide educational and social opportunities for children, provide early intervention support for parents and help families through the transition to formal schooling. Noah’s Ark states it is the only non-government early intervention service that offers one-on-one support to enable children with disabilities to participate in mainstream programs prior to formal schooling.
Their programs complement a wide range of therapy treatment and interventions available to these children. They also provide resources for families, including physical aids, modified equipment, communication aids and other educational support resources.
Both organisations are now facing a funding crisis due to the health funding at the commonwealth level under the previous scheme ceasing. In the past the commonwealth government provided this funding which, in the case of the Shepherd Centre, represented up to 50 per cent of the operating costs. This funding, which was not recurrent, was administered on behalf of the commonwealth government by state and territory governments. With the introduction of the new education agreement with the states and territories, this targeted funding program ceased.
Minister Barr, through his department, has provided grant funding, as he has told us, of $55,000 for the Shepherd Centre until 30 June this year because parts of the centre’s funding ceased in December 2009. The Shepherd Centre has requested funding from Mr Barr for a period of six months until December this year while they try to resolve the long-term funding issues. At this stage, without funding, they may have to close in September of this year.
Noah’s Ark were advised in December 2009 that funding which they had received for the last eight years under the commonwealth non-government centre support scheme would cease on 30 June 2010 and that the ACT government would be undertaking a tender process to identify future providers of these services. Funding is due to cease next week and the tender process has yet to be announced. I will come back to that in a moment.
Noah’s Ark has little confidence that their services will actually even fit into the tendering criteria when it is announced. Their view is that the focus will be on the school-based support, which I think has, in some ways, been confirmed by the minister this morning, rather than those early intervention services before school.
While new arrangements are being put in place, Noah’s Ark, as we understand it, has pursued alternative funding options while it negotiates with the ACT government to obtain support for parts of its programs. They need to find out what ACT government department will be responsible for the special needs early intervention services they provide and how they will get the sort of funding needed to maintain the program.
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