Page 2565 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 June 2012
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to work in supporting families. We now have three child and family centres, which are hubs for early intervention services. This capacity will increase with the addition of community-based child protection workers, who will link families with support services to prevent additional statutory involvement. One element of this is the intensive family support service, working with care and protection to prevent children from entering care and, if in care, to support the restoration of children back to their families as soon as possible.
Another part of the government’s response is the development of a whole-of-government responsibility. I am especially pleased that the government’s strategic board has embraced this obligation and is establishing a directors-general vulnerable families coordinating committee. This committee will put into effect the one ACT public service objective to coordinate one government response with regard to these most vulnerable families.
In 2011 the published data figures indicated that care and protection services received 13,000 notifications of alleged abuse, of which 826 were substantiated. The number of emergency actions taken was 117. So for the vast majority of children, alternative interventions are indeed put in place.
An aspect of responding to individual needs of children is to ensure that the child’s cultural heritage is included in their individual care plan. The Public Advocate has included a specific recommendation that this element of the service needs to be improved. Again, the government has agreed to the recommendation and can report that substantial progress has been made. The directorate has been reviewing services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders across all of its functions. A new service delivery model will be implemented in the second half of this year, and will include the improved integration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff with care and protection services.
Finally, the Public Advocate recommends that an ongoing review mechanism to monitor performance on an ongoing basis be put in place. The government agrees that ongoing scrutiny of this important work should be maintained.
To bolster the internal capacity for review, the office has established an independent decision-making panel, and that panel is up and operating. We will also be establishing an external review panel to monitor progress. This panel will be chaired by the Chair of the Children and Youth Services Council, Narelle Hargreaves. The Public Advocate will be invited to join the panel, as well as a person from an independent office.
This plan and our response have received the positive endorsement of the Public Advocate, who told ABC radio that it was brilliant. On 2CC she elaborated by saying that “the minister has come out today with a response with money, with strategies, with plans, and most importantly I think is a monitoring mechanism that we are going to be involved in, and we’re not going to let any of this go through any more”.
I agree with the Public Advocate, and under my ministry we will not let any of this go through. With these major reforms, I am committed 100 per cent to making sure that
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