Page 362 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 2019
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Directorate and my chief of staff, had a strong focus on early support for children, young people and families at risk.
As you would be aware, Madam Speaker, the government is currently undertaking a project previously called “Early intervention by design”, now known as “Early support by design”. This project is led by the Community Services Directorate and has engaged all of the human services cluster directorates—CSD, education, health, and justice and community safety—as well as our community partners, in a detailed consideration of what we need to do to move our service system towards providing better support for individuals and families early in the life of a problem and even before problems emerge.
Members will also be aware of this government’s commitment to working towards Canberra becoming a restorative city. While the primary responsibility for this lies with my colleague the Attorney-General, those of you who have participated in forums on this topic will know that other restorative cities have prioritised the use of restorative practices in the spaces of child protection, youth justice and family support.
Providing further context, the government is now just past the halfway mark in implementing both its five-year out of home care strategy, A step up for our kids, and its 10-year blueprint for youth justice in the ACT. It was, therefore, timely to visit jurisdictions that have made substantial changes in the way they support children, young people and their families through the implementation of practices that focus on working with families rather than doing things to or for them.
Madam Speaker, during the trip we heard time and time again that, particularly when you are working in complex situations with vulnerable individuals and families, it is all about relationships. That is why so many of the programs and services we visited were co-designed with children, young people, parents, carers and other program clients, because good relationships can only be built on a platform of trust and respect. We also observed the importance of cultural change being led from the top, while those we spoke with emphasised that changing culture and practice is a journey, and there is always more that can be done.
The visit took in four sites of the United Kingdom and Ireland: Nottingham and Leeds in England, Renfrewshire in Scotland, and Cork in Ireland. We spent two days in Nottingham, starting the visit with Opportunity Nottingham. This program is funded by the National Lottery over eight years to support the most challenging, hard to reach customers who are not accessing current services. Beneficiaries must meet three out of four criteria: homelessness, mental health, substance abuse or being an offender. Sixty per cent of clients meet all four. Important for us to recall as we continued on the visit with a focus on children and families was the fact that most participants’ behaviours and vulnerabilities trace back to severe childhood trauma.
Opportunity Nottingham has recently increased its capacity to focus on trauma-informed care and create a “psychologically informed environment” for its work, by employing a clinical psychologist. This has also enabled identification of previously undiagnosed brain injuries and autism in clients.
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