Page 2242 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
providers of educational programs for children and young people with a disability. Noah’s Ark and the Shepherd Centre received non-recurrent funding through the ACT Department of Education and Training under this program.
With the introduction of the new education agreement, the Australian government has ceased funding to this program. Whilst acknowledging the impact that this will have on certain services offered by these centres, I challenge the assumption of Mr Doszpot’s motion that this is due to reallocation of funding by this government. Let us be quite clear, this issue has come about due to the cessation of funding by the commonwealth and not as a result of reallocation of funds by this government.
The Shepherd Centre is a not-for-profit charity that has been in existence for 40 years, with its head office based in Darlington, New South Wales. The Canberra-based centre is at Rivett, and the centre teaches hearing-impaired children to listen and speak, with the aim being to integrate them into mainstream schools. The program offered by the Shepherd Centre is an intensive auditory verbal program in one-to-one intervention and weekly playgroup sessions. An auditory verbal approach is based on teaching hearing-impaired children speech as opposed to sign language and is the preferred option for some families.
An official from my department first met with the Shepherd Centre in March to discuss the funding for the Shepherd Centre. At this time, the CEO provided an overview of the centre and explained why some of the program’s funding was at risk. In May of this year the department advised the Shepherd Centre that the early intervention education program was not one that would be prioritised under the national disability agreement. The focus of the agreement is on support, accommodation, community access, community support and respite, not education.
The Shepherd Centre was advised that Disability ACT would consider program funding for programs that provided family support or respite effect and that the centre was invited to provide a more detailed request to the department. The Shepherd Centre has yet to respond to this offer.
The ACT government provides substantial services to children and young people with hearing disability through the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services. Therapy ACT provides early intervention programs to children up to the age of eight years who have a hearing impairment. Children and families accessing the Shepherd Centre are also eligible to access Therapy ACT services and would be given a high priority category. Therapy ACT programs are not the same auditory verbal programs, however they have an effective speech pathology program.
Currently, there are approximately six children who access both the Shepherd Centre and Therapy ACT. The ACT government has provided additional funding for speech pathologists and additional clients who would be able to be catered for within a reasonable period of time. The ACT government, through Disability ACT, provides an annual grant to the Canberra Deaf Children’s Association to fund information and support to families. Funding is also provided to the ACT Deafness Resource Centre to provide information, referral, communication and advocacy services across the ACT Deaf Community.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video