Page 4552 - Week 12 - Thursday, 26 October 2017
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outreach supports, information, counselling, advocacy and practical safety supports. The additional funding provided to Canberra Rape Crisis Centre is helping to meet increased demand from victims of sexual assault in the ACT.
Early intervention with children
A key platform for early intervention with children in the ACT is the Child and Family Centres. These centres are ACT Government service providers that aim to:
• positively influence the developmental pathways and life trajectory of children;
• build capacity and resilience of families to support their children; and
• strengthen the linkages and connections of families to supportive communities.
Child and Family Centres are accessible to all families with young children. Child and Family Centres support families to access the services they need, including referral to specialist services. Children and families are supported through a tailored service offer to meet family need through individual, group and outreach approaches. This can lead to ongoing, one-to-one support with a child and family worker.
The Education Directorate is also building the knowledge and capacity of frontline staff to respond to the individual needs of students through a range of professional learning. Compulsory child protection training which includes information about domestic and family violence and responses to students and the impacts of complex trauma on a children’s development is an example of this work.
Key elements from the 2015-16 Trauma Understanding and Sensitive Teaching in Schools (TRUST) pilot in Canberra Public Schools are being implemented as part of the Positive Behaviours for Learning (PBL) project. TRUST was initiated in 2014 and aims to assist schools to increase their skills base in building relationships, creating safe and supportive environments and utilising positive responses to behaviour; increasing children's educational engagement and social and emotional wellbeing. Combining key TRUST elements with PBL allows more schools to participate in applying TRUST principles. Currently, 25 Canberra Public Schools have started their PBL journey.
Outside of government-led approaches, the Domestic Violence Crisis Service runs the Young People’s Outreach Program (YPOP). The YPOP is an early intervention program that aims to assist children and their families known to Domestic Violence Crisis Service who have been affected by or are living with domestic and family violence.
ACT Health
ACT Health recognises the perinatal period as one of heightened risk for experiencing domestic and family violence. To this end, staff within the Perinatal Mental Health Service have undertaken domestic and family violence training and subsequently introduced family violence screening. The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) have introduced an online domestic and family violence training program with the intention to expand screening to all CAMHS services, ensuring that all young people who access CAMHS services are screened for exposure to family violence. ACT Health will continue to streamline their domestic and family violence screening and risk assessment questions on client assessment forms.
ACT Health has also allocated $2 million in funding in the 2016-17 Budget to provide more effective responses to people who use alcohol or other drugs (AOD) in harmful ways and who are experiencing, or at risk of family violence. This initiative will increase the capacity of specialist drug treatment services to deliver programs and training that integrate best practice in addressing family violence.
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