Page 481 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 2019
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understanding of best practice responses and trauma-informed therapeutic responses to children and young people who have experienced complex trauma as a result of adverse childhood experiences.
MRS DUNNE: Noting that the minister did not answer that question, minister, is allowing a young child to bounce between detention and being put in places where she assaults her carers really the most evidence-based support that this government can provide to this child at this point in time?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: As I said in response to the question previously, and I thank Mrs Dunne for the supplementary, this work is complex and difficult. I have acknowledged in previous answers that a child’s progress to recover from complex trauma will often be a case of two steps forward and one step back as the effectiveness of different therapeutic interventions and supports changes over time.
I want to commend all those who work in therapeutic care teams to provide support to very difficult and complex children with very difficult behaviours, 24 hours a day seven days a week. I can assure the Assembly and I can assure the Canberra community that these young people are receiving wraparound support from child and youth protection services, where they are in care, from Act Together, from therapeutic teams, and from Premier Youthworks where that is relevant.
But yes, some young people commit assaults. And yes, some young people, as a result, will end up in Bimberi Youth Justice Centre. When they are in Bimberi Youth Justice Centre, they are not confined in segregation other than as a last resort response to behaviours within the centre. They have access to education. They have a school there, in fact, as members opposite would be aware. They have access to other young people. Indeed, as I mentioned in my response to the question last week, the newspaper article noted that the young person in question had specifically said that that was one of the things that they appreciated.
MRS KIKKERT: Minister, what is stopping the ACT government from providing a purpose-built trauma-informed residential care home like the one you visited in Scotland in December, even if only as a temporary measure?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: Mrs Kikkert, could you repeat the question, please?
MRS KIKKERT: I am happy to. What is stopping the ACT government from providing a purpose-built trauma-informed residential care home like the one you visited in Scotland in December, even if only as a temporary measure?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: The home I visited in Scotland was a residential care home. It provided trauma-informed therapeutic responses to young people in out of home care, in the same way that our residential care homes here in the ACT provide therapeutic trauma-informed responses to children and young people who are in out of home care. It was a different design. It was an interesting model. Our model tends not to have six young people living together. We have moved away from having that number of young people living together. It was an interesting model. It is something that we might want to consider. But our practice is different. That is why we go on
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