Page 1456 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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I believe this is the way forward to give us a good, solid bit of information. These children deserve the best that we can provide. The study needs to consider the literature, the best practice models and the location including specialist schools. I undertake to provide the report in August as per that amendment, and I think this is the way forward. Whilst I thank Ms Hunter for bringing the motion on, I commend the amendment to members.
MR DOSZPOT (Brindabella) (3:48): The difficulties encountered by families of children with disability have already been well discoursed in this chamber, though it is a topic that can always do with more attention. It is interesting to note from the outset that only after my motion last week bringing to the Assembly’s attention that the minister had not provided a formal government response to the Love has its limits report, even after an extension of the response deadline was granted, do we now have a government response, as of yesterday. Today, not wanting to be left out of the picture, we are debating Ms Hunter’s motion with reference to the report’s fourth recommendation.
The Disability portfolio is perhaps that one portfolio where all three parties in this Assembly have worked with some degree of cooperation in trying to find resolutions for affected families. After-school care, or the lack thereof, for students with disabilities is a recurring problem that needs to be addressed. Simply put, there is more that can be and needs to be done. If the problem is not finding an after-school place, it is finding a permanent after-school place. And if it is not that, then it is perhaps finding the necessary transportation arrangements to bring the child from the special needs school to the after-school care service.
The Canberra Times article “Too Long to Wait for Disabled” captures it all. Concerned mother Sheree Henley says:
It was the process of getting to that resolution that was a complete nightmare and it’s not certain. The end result is yes, he’s got a place, but it’s miles away and I don’t know how long he can stay.
The cases and issues that have been brought to my office are equally compelling and are consistent with Ms Henley’s experience. In extreme cases we have met with family members who have been forced to give up full-time work or, in one instance, to contemplate giving up their child to the system. This is what our disability system has become under ACT Labor and this is what our disability system is after over two years under the ACT Labor-Greens alliance. It is because of the courageous struggles and sacrifices of these families that we here in the Assembly must get it right when it comes to after-school care for the disabled children in our community.
As chair of the Standing Committee on Health, Community and Social Services, I stand by the Love has its limits recommendation that the government establish after-school care programs and its special schools. This position is informed by the belief that there is a cogent argument that can be made to utilise existing special school structures for after school care, if not for cost reasons then for alleviating the need for parents to find transportation solutions to bring their child to an after-school care service when school has ended.
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