Page 3640 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 13 September 2017
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from the Community Services Directorate to support its work in general family and dispute resolution, neighbourhood disputes and mediation between young people and their families where the young people are at risk of homelessness.
Mrs Kikkert has referred to comments I made which related to an interview by the CEO of CRS, Shawn van der Linden, last week in the media where Mr van der Linden noted that CRS has had a history of never having waiting lists because they always just said yes to everyone, and he talked about an increase in referrals from a range of services. I absolutely want to commend the CRS team for their fabulous work but I also want to commend Mr van der Linden and the CRS team for the work they have done in looking at their service model to ensure that it is, indeed, sustainable into the future.
CRS is part of a service system that also includes a range of other providers. I talked on radio, for example, about community legal centres that I understand had been referring to CRS. Of course, the government committed an extra $1.6 million to community legal centres in this latest budget.
The Community Services Directorate, as I said, continues to fund CRS for more than $630,000 in this year and continues to work with CRS to ensure that its services are targeted to low income Canberrans who need them. The Community Services Directorate has been encouraging CRS to consider diversifying its business model and to consider financial— (Time expired.)
MRS KIKKERT: Minister, what other existing alternative dispute resolution services can vulnerable Canberrans who wish to avoid the justice system now be referred to?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I again emphasise that the Conflict Resolution Service continues to provide the services for which it has been funded for a number of years, specifically around the family tree house program and the other programs around general family and dispute resolution and neighbourhood disputes. The tree house, of course, is about mediation between young people and their families when young people are at risk of homelessness. That is what CRS has been funded for for some time, and that is what it is continuing to do.
As I said, they are part of a service system. There are other services that we have funded. For example, in one of my other portfolios, we are supporting a family group conferencing pilot for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families coming into contact with the child protection system to empower those families, in a mediation-type setting, to work among themselves and with community service providers to find solutions for their own challenges to keep children safe at home. As I mentioned, the most recent budget put in an additional $1.6 million for community legal centres which provide those services.
And as I said on radio, there is a range of other services within the sector, including advocacy services, that support people in different parts of the system. What we need to do, and what we are doing, is to work with the Conflict Resolution Service to ensure that they are providing the most appropriate service, to consider their financial
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