Page 2190 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 August 2016
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The government has invested in the new out of home care strategy, a step up for our kids, which the opposition has supported up to this time in this place. But we want to see this result in efficient local adoption processes that prioritise permanency where that is in the best interests of the child or young person.
Yesterday we heard from Minister Bourke about the training and development program under the new out of home care strategy. Training and development is a very important area. But, equally, making sure the local adoption process works efficiently, where that is in the best interests of the child or young person, should also be prioritised. I will quote directly from page 35 of a step up for our kids.
The strategy provides for case management of and long-term decision making for all children and young people on long-term orders (orders to 18 years) to be outsourced to non-government agencies.
At page 35 it states that one of the benefits of this approach is:
Easier, quicker opportunities to secure permanency of the relationship where that is appropriate.
It says “easier, quicker opportunities to secure permanency”. What I hear from my constituents is that this is not being delivered at this time. Waiting for three years for an adoption process to take place is not sufficient by anyone’s standards.
Adopt Change commissioned some research in August 2015 about attitudes and perceptions of adoption in Australia. Some of the findings of that research included that there is a sense that the system fails children, that children in foster care are caught in a vicious cycle where they are bounced from home to home. The perception is that the adoption process is long and complicated, involving many barriers, and the time involved in the process is too long: “Five to seven years, hence we did not continue,” said one survey respondent.
The Canberra Liberals do not want the system to fail the vulnerable children and young people in the ACT’s out of home care system. Where adoption is in the best interests of the child or young person it should be made as timely as possible. My motion today calls on the government to report back to the Assembly about the work that has taken place since I last brought the motion to the Assembly and was assured that the government was doing all that it could.
The people who have contacted me over almost the past year are the same people who contacted me before the September 2015 motion that I brought to this place. Clearly the changes prefaced in the out of home care strategy, a step up for our kids, are not making a difference on the ground as yet. For those young people, it is important to get them into a permanent, loving relationship. They are already within the embrace of that family and that community. For some of them the final hurdle of the actual adoption will make a tangible difference to their lives—not only to the child but also in terms of the stress placed on the family. It also takes them out of the system and makes them part of the wider community without the constant interaction with the government system. Madam Deputy Speaker, I understand that Dr Bourke has circulated an amendment and I will speak more to that at the time.
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