Page 3296 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 22 September 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
In presenting today’s statement, I note that while this final report details achievements across five key areas over the past five years, the Picture of ACT’s children and young people reports annually on outcomes on how young people have been faring more broadly. For those who do not know, the ACT has a young population compared to the rest of Australia. Young people aged 12 to 25 years make up 19 per cent of the ACT’s total population. Of that group, 2.9 per cent identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and 19 per cent were born overseas.
We know that young people experience huge changes from the ages of 12 to 25 years that can directly impact on their wellbeing and their futures. Young people may need help to navigate unfamiliar territory to build their skills and capabilities to cope with day-to-day challenges of their world and to achieve their potential.
Alongside this, the families of young people may also need support to better manage new situations and negotiate new boundaries. This is particularly important when evidence shows us that young people can be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of mental ill health, risk taking behaviours and disengagement from school, training or employment. So against this background, the young people’s plan sought to identify the needs of young people through their voices and to set out what they needed as they transitioned from early to late adolescence and then to early adulthood.
Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about achievements in relation to five key areas in the original plan. These are health, wellbeing and support, families and communities, participation and access, transitions and pathways, and the environment and sustainability. The list of achievements set out in the appendix of the final report is lengthy so today I will talk more broadly about what the breadth of this work has meant for young people and their families.
Firstly, our progress is the result of real collaboration across the ACT government directorates and community providers to put in place policies, services and supports that respond to a young person’s complete physical, emotional and social wellbeing.
To give you a broad sense of how this government has been delivering for young people and their families across the life of the young people’s plan, I can report that from 2009 to 2014 we have implemented a coordinated approach to services and supports to promote healthy lifestyles and respond to mental ill health; improved young people’s participation in education, training and employment; developed services and support for at-risk young people and their families; reduced the number of young people involved in the youth justice system; supported young people to participate and learn more about issues relating to the environment and sustainability; and established a new direction for the way human services will be developed and delivered.
Our approach across the domains of a young person’s life has been to make it easier for young people to get help and to get help early before issues get too big for them to handle. In terms of health and wellbeing, the ACT government has invested in measures that focus on preventative health and education. Foundation policy work shows that our health and education areas have implemented a wide range of initiatives around healthy eating and exercise and positive life choices that will help young people establish good habits that will last a lifetime.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video