Page 3829 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 2010
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This year no child with epilepsy died as a result of drowning.
It talked about natural bodies of water:
… five children drowned in a natural body of water …
Two of the five deaths in 2008 occurred in one incident.
It talked about private swimming pools or spas:
In 2008, 10 children drowned in private swimming pools …
All the deaths concerned young children aged 1-2 years accessing the pool without the knowledge of their carer. There were issues with the pool barriers, the way they were used, or both.
All the children were engaged in free play at the time of the fatal incident.
The recommendation following on from this analysis was:
That the NSW Swimming Pools Regulation 2008, require local authorities to inspect all swimming pools notified within their area and monitor compliance with the legislation. This could occur through councils developing a plan for inspection and monitoring over a period of years, and reporting periodically against the plan.
These examples of the New South Wales Child Death Review Team’s work allow us to understand that the analysis of the circumstances surrounding the death is critical to ensuring that strategies, campaigns, and indeed the spending of public funds, are targeted towards the right areas.
This bill proposes that a new chapter be placed in the Children and Young People Act 2008 which establishes and sets out the functions, powers and processes of the children and young people death review committee.
The functions of the committee include keeping a register of death of the children and young people that occur in the ACT and the deaths that occur outside the ACT of children and young people who normally live in the ACT. The committee will also identify trends and patterns in relation to the deaths of children and young people and undertake research and identify future research that aims to prevent or reduce the likelihood of the death of children and young people.
The committee is required to make recommendations about legislation, policies, practices and services for implementation by the territory and non-government bodies to help prevent or reduce the likelihood of death and also to monitor the implementation of the committee’s recommendations. The committee is also given the function to report to the minister through an annual report each financial year and any other function given to the committee under chapter 19A.
The nature of the committee is structured to ensure that a multidisciplinary team will sit at the table and, without cause for blame or culpability, look at the death, the
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