Page 4213 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 24 October 2018
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Assembly. Part of the Glanfield inquiry, of course, specifically focused on child and youth protection services. Key themes included decision-making, quality assurance and oversight.
CYPS has invested significantly in delivering high quality family and domestic violence training to staff. The training program is run in partnership with the DVCS. A range of other partners were also present at the training program, including the Australian Federal Police, Legal Aid, Office of the Coordinator-General for Family Safety and ACT corrections. The training equips staff with the understanding and skills to respond to family violence in the context of child protection and youth justice work.
The establishment of the case analysis team in CYPS in October 2016 has been a key platform for improving decision-making and quality of case management. This team continues to provide independent analysis of individual cases at key decision-making points. The ACT government has also committed funding to develop a new client management system for CYPS, the child and family centres and the child development service.
The new client management system, known as the child and youth record information system, CYRIS, will replace a legacy client information system enabling easier exchange of information across government agencies. The new system will make it easier to collect, report and exchange information or data about matters relating to children and young people who experience domestic and family violence and develop tools that support this work. My understanding at this stage is that it is expected that CYRIS will be in place across CYPS in early 2019.
Plans are also underway to build interfaces that will improve the exchange of information about vulnerable children and young people in near real-time, including with police and education. These system improvements will assist in delivering near to real-time exchange of information about children and young people identified as being at risk in the child protection system, including those who have experienced family violence.
I recognise that all these changes and reforms are critical to improving child and youth protection services and how it responds to children and young people who are experiencing, or who have experienced, domestic and family violence. But I also recognise that the ideal and most appropriate response for the vast majority of children and young people who experience family violence is not, nor should it be, the tertiary child protection system.
Preventing violence is clearly the most effective and desirable outcome and where this is not possible, intervening early in the life of a problem must be our aim. This is why the ACT government has committed to the early support by design initiative, an ambitious 10-year plan to shift the human services system towards early intervention and prevention.
The long-term objective of this work is to improve life outcomes in three priority areas: families who have experienced domestic and family violence, vulnerable
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