Page 1449 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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(c) provide after school care at each of the four special schools, Woden, Black Mountain, Malkara and Cranleigh by the beginning of Term 3, 2011 and no later than Term 1, 2012; and
(d) continue to support and fund other community-based services, including appropriate transport options.
The motion I present today is about advocating on behalf of parents with children with disabilities to receive the basic entitlement of after-school care. For parents of children without disability there are dozens of services across the territory that children can access. After-school care makes paid employment possible for parents, particularly full-time work or part-time work that requires the full span of hours in a working day. The right to participate in paid employment is basic and yet for parents of teenagers with a disability it is not a given—not at all.
According to the August 2010 Department of Education and Training school census, the number of students with special needs is 1,995, an increase of 134 from 2006; 503 of these students are enrolled in high schools and colleges. There are 364 enrolments at special schools, 184 of these across the secondary age units at the Black Mountain and the Woden school. Currently, the ACT provides 17 after-school places for young people over 12 with a disability in north Canberra, with seven of these restricted to those in wheelchairs, and 16 places in south Canberra in specialised after-school programs for those over 12 with a disability. These programs are highly subscribed. Currently there are no care places whatsoever in north Canberra for a young person with a high level of disability and only two of five days for low level disability. There are very limited places in south Canberra. Parents often need access over the five working days in order to be competitive in the employment market.
I have met with and been in contact with a number of parents that have teenage children with high level disability, particularly severe autism, who are unable to access any specialised after-school care. In order to work, they need to appeal to mainstream services for primary school aged children. Another mother is only able to work 9.30 am to 2.30 pm, as she believes it would not be fair to place her 14-year-old son, who has challenging behaviour, into a primary school aged service. She is unable to access any appropriate care.
The need seems to be greatest on the north side of Canberra. A single mother who has made representations to my office has gone through hell to get any form of after-school care—not disability care, just after-school care. The woman and her son live in west Belconnen. She works in the city and her son accesses care in Watson. At times she has been required to do this trip on public transport when her car has broken down.
I have decided to actually walk you through her day. At 7 am, disability transport picks her son up and transports him to school and then from school to an after-school care service for primary school children in Watson. Soon after 5 pm, his mum leaves work in Civic. She could catch the 5.12 service to Watson and it arrives at 5.33. With her son, she will board a bus back to Civic, arriving at 6.21 pm, and at 6.33 pm she will travel on the 313 service to west Belconnen, arriving at 7.12 pm—a two-hour trip to pick up her son from care; a day that lasts longer than 12 hours for her son. For his
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