Page 362 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 17 February 2015
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Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community representatives have already welcomed the strategy’s focus on diverting children and young people from care through strengthening high risk families. The ACT government will continue to engage with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body as the strategy implementation progresses to ensure it remains culturally appropriate.In order to achieve the best outcomes for children and young people, it is important to harness resources from across government. The territory as parent strategy brings all areas of ACT government together to support children and young people in care to ensure that they have the best possible chance to grow up to lead a happy, healthy and productive life.
Work which has already commenced includes ACT Health’s participation on the strengthening high risk families panel. This panel facilitates access to health services for vulnerable children and their families who are clients of statutory services. There is also an education and training pathways initiative which brings the Education and Training and Community Services directorates together on an ongoing basis to plan for and monitor the achievement of improved education and training outcomes for children and young people in care.
The development of the out of home care strategy has coincided with preparations for the ACT’s rollout of the NDIS. Disability is a significant issue for the out of home care strategy. It is generally accepted that children and young people with a disability are over-represented within child protection services, although little research has been conducted to identify their prevalence.
Historically, some children with disability came into care as a last resort in order to obtain services needed as a result of their disability. The out of home care strategy reflects the view that parents of a child or young person with a disability should not have to relinquish parental responsibility for their child in order to receive a service related to the child’s disability. The NDIS should help to relieve pressure on parents of a child with a disability by providing reasonable and necessary supports, including early intervention supports, to children and young people with a disability.
The out of home care strategy will seek to ensure that parents, children and young people with an entitlement access services through the NDIS. In particular, the introduction of comprehensive developmental and therapeutic assessments for all children and young people entering placement prevention services or care will help to ensure that eligible children and young people are identified.
Through strengthening high risk families’ services, birth parents with a disability will be encouraged and supported to access NDIS services, and parents and their support workers, with consent, will be invited to attend case planning meetings for the family to ensure all services are working together to keep the child or young person with their birth family.
One of the best examples of the commitment to strengthening high risk families is the long-term investment made by this government in Karinya House. Mr Barr, the Chief
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