Page 3224 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 17 September 2013
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The throughcare unit is responsible for supporting the coordinated release of all sentenced detainees exiting the Alexander Maconochie Centre and all women, remanded or sentenced, exiting the AMC. As part of that coordination, the throughcare unit has been working with stakeholders in 2013 to develop a number of packages that are focused on what are seen as the key areas of rehabilitation. These packages are designed to coordinate service delivery to offenders by a range of government and community service providers.
The key areas for detainees upon release from the AMC are health services, such as physical, mental, social and financial health; housing, which may include transitional accommodation, government housing, other longer-term housing and maintenance of accommodation; connections, be they cultural, to family, to friends, and how these can be facilitated, including through enhancing access to transport; and finally jobs, including job assessment, skills development, maintaining employment and improving employment prospects.
The unit has recently commenced coordinating service delivery in these four key areas through service providers such as ACT Housing, Centrelink, the Job Network and St Vincent de Paul, to name just a few. The throughcare unit also engages with ACT Policing, the Women’s Services Network, Aboriginal Services and the Aboriginal community, and ACT Corrective Services staff working at the AMC and in the probation and parole unit.
This additional engagement enhances understanding of the services available and of the needs of specific clients. It is from this understanding that the throughcare unit and its partners have confirmed that two particularly vulnerable client groups need special assistance under our extended throughcare model. These are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander detainees and women detainees.
We know that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander detainees are massively over-represented in the criminal justice system and face endemic problems with social and community disadvantage. We know that those women who are incarcerated have usually faced severe social and economic disadvantage and typically have themselves been victims of crime. To respond to the special needs of these groups, the throughcare unit and its partners are working together to provide additional services and coordination.
As I noted earlier, all women, be they sentenced or remanded detainees, can access extended throughcare upon release from the AMC. The throughcare unit has since found that its women clients need additional assistance. As a result, it is now establishing with women’s services providers special coordination meetings which examine the needs of each client. Similarly, coordination meetings have been established with agencies providing services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients to examine the needs of each client.
To ensure that the throughcare unit and other service providers are across changes in the delivery of services over time, an advisory group has been established to inform the implementation. The advisory group, which meets monthly, consists of
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