Page 3826 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 2010
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MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (10.03): I move:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
The ACT Greens are introducing this bill today to establish a comprehensive child and young person death review mechanism in the ACT.
Whenever a child dies, we know that a community of people surrounding that child are all affected in ways that cannot be measured. The loss of a child is not something we ever want to experience. In fact, if we had the chance to prevent it, we would. This is the driving force behind the establishment of a child death review committee within the Children and Young People Act 2008.
When we talk about a child death review committee, we are not talking about a process which circumvents or overtakes the mechanisms we already have in place. Within the territory, there are three existing mechanisms which work to review the deaths of children and young people. These are: the ACT Coroners Court, which must hold an inquest into the manner and cause of death of a person who dies in those circumstances set out in section 13 of the Coroners Act 1997; and the Clinical Review Committee within ACT Health, which is a privileged committee and the internal review process within the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services for children who come into contact with or are known to the Office for Children, Youth and Family Support.
In 2009, a memorandum of understanding was signed between ACT Health and the ACT Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services, which includes care and protection services, allowing for the joint case review of clients known to both care and protection services and ACT Health. The review process is conducted under the auspices of the ACT Health Clinical Audit Committee. Cases referred to the audit committee include critical incidents such as the death of an infant or child, and near-miss incidents will also be reviewed in the future.
In relation to the death of a child known to child protection services, currently the ACT Health Clinical Audit Committee can provide recommendations for systemic improvements for individual agencies and for improved collaboration between ACTÂ Health and child protection services. Child protection services may also engage an external investigator to review a child death in some circumstances.
This new mechanism is designed to build on the existing reviews. The children and young people death review committee will undertake its function after any other applicable inquiry or investigation has run its course. The committee review is designed to be far broader ranging than the existing process and collate existing information to give a broad perspective on child deaths in the ACT.
Within an Australian context, child death review teams aim to identify strengths and weaknesses in system responses for the benefit of future prevention and action. Child death review teams do not aim to determine the culpability of alleged offenders or
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