Page 3272 - Week 10 - Thursday, 25 September 2014
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engagement. And the resulting issue of social isolation can compound their mental health issues.
They also went on to talk about parenting advice and assistance and the programs there being quite full.
When you go to the recommendations on mental health, recommendation 27 states:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government detail to the Legislative Assembly by the last sitting day of October 2014 how it will fund and address—
and there is a month to go on that—
the issue of youth and young people’s mental health in our education system particularly detailing the crosssectoral approach that will be undertaken.
You have to remember that two Liberal and two Labor members came to that conclusion. This was bipartisan. And the government’s response is simply to note the issue. “Yes, okay, there is an issue; noted.” The approach to address mental health in students is guided by the primary prevention and early intervention triangle model.
The government, I think, can be quite flippant about what is an important issue. We all know that if these issues are not nipped in the bud, if they are not addressed early, then of course they grow and fester and everyone suffers—the student, the class they are in, the teachers, the school, but particularly the families as well. I think it is unfortunate that the government seems to take such a light view of this. What they could have done was come back and detail what they were going to do and how they were going to address the growing need. That was why the YWCA brought it to the attention of the committee. They saw it as an important issue. It is a shame that the minister did not feel the same way.
In another area, there were questions about the issue of the physical fitness of our students. It is well known that kids that are fit do well, they comprehend well, they can of course concentrate better. Recommendation 91, again a bipartisan committee, two Liberal, two Labor, states:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government collect, maintain and report annually on ACT school students’ health and fitness.
Again the government’s response is “noted”. But the problem is that the government just seem to ignore the issue. They say, “There is a bit of work done here, and there is a bit of work here, and there are a few programs there.” But we are already aware of that. The issues brought to us would indicate that these programs are not meeting need, these programs are not addressing the issues.
If you want an education capital that is leading the country, as the front of the strategic plan says, and you want your kids to do well, if they are not physically fit and if they are not mentally well, then the education that these kids are going to get will not be as good as it could be, to the detriment of all. I would ask the minister to go back and look at particularly those two recommendations again. If kids are starting behind then those kids are not going to get ahead, and that is a shame.
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