Page 3079 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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different levels of support. Children have a variety of needs. Some of their needs are very complex and some not so. Some are in need of long-term placements, and some require short-term or emergency care placements.
Foster families need to be carefully matched with each and every child. I can imagine that this is difficult under circumstances where there is a shortage of foster carers, but it is something that must be considered. Children can be supported in their own community or social networks, or with their own extended families—uncles, aunties, grandparents. Kinship carers are increasingly playing an important role in caring for children in out-of-home placements. This can be very challenging at times, especially as many kinship carers are grandparents—older people, perhaps with less income and fewer resources, but with a great deal of care and love invested in the child. I would like to make special mention of the many grandparents out there who, in their later stages of life, are forced through tragedy and motivated by love to take on the care of their children’s children. These grandparents are not formally recognised as “foster carers”, but the work they do is so valuable that I believe they deserve a special mention in this discussion today.
I am heartened to see that Ms Lawder’s motion acknowledges that foster carers can be young, old, single, married or same-sex couples, and from many different cultures and religious backgrounds. I know there are some on the conservative side of politics who think that single people and same-sex couples should not be allowed to care for children through adoption or IVF, but here is an acknowledgement that these people are indeed able to offer carer and parenting roles for children successfully, and I welcome that acknowledgement.
Here in the ACT we have laws that support the rights of singles and same-sex couples to adopt, foster or have permanent care placements, but this is not the case right across Australia. It says something about the wonderful, equitable and progressive community that we live in here in the ACT.
I recently sought further information and was briefed on the high over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care. While there is no disputing the need to better recognise and respond to early identification and notification of family breakdown, there are some positive initiatives being rolled out that seem well targeted and well designed to better work with affected community members.
I understand that the Community Services Directorate are supporting the creation of a new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory panel to provide more cultural support. While we know the ACT has very high levels of notifications to the Community Services Directorate, we also know that, thankfully, many of these notifications are not substantiated. However, there is more work to do on ensuring that families are not then again placed at risk and are not re-notified later.
Overall, it is clear that a lot of the major concerns that have been raised in this place over the years seem to have been listened to and addressed. It is fair to say that the level of concern, often indicated by the number of constituent and stakeholder representations to the Greens on these issues, has reduced in recent years, and that is one positive indicator at least that the system is working better than it used to.
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