Page 1918 - Week 05 - Thursday, 16 May 2019
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Ms Stephen-Smith: The answer to the member’s question is as follows:
(1) The ACT Government works with a broad range of community groups/organisations and stakeholders to support vulnerable children, young people and families within the Territory.
The ACT region is supported by many community groups/organisations, not all of which receive funding from the ACT Government. The ACT Government encourages community groups and organisations to foster partnerships with other funded and unfunded providers, including local businesses. As a result, the reach of local community groups and organisations is greater than the ACT Government can specifically account for. For example, the Community Services Directorate’s, Child, Youth and Family Services Program includes four Network Coordinators that aim to build and support collaborative practice between service providers. The Network Coordinators have built a broad base of relationships with community groups and organisations that support children, young people and families, such as ACT Little Athletics, Apprenticeship Support Australia, Ginninderra Lions Club, Refugee Support Group, Kookaburra Kids, The Cancer Council and Variety the Children’s Charity.
There are also a range of organisations that provide support to children, youth and families at ACT Public schools that may not be listed in the following. Supports provided include mental health, curriculum, health and wellbeing support and sporting and cultural activities. In addition, the following list does not include all early childhood education and care providers in the ACT.
Several registers and portals exist to assist ACT Government employees to direct people to additional support services that they may require. For example, the Director-General, Community Services Directorate is required to maintain a publicly accessible register of organisations that have been approved under Section 63 of the Children and Young People Act 2008 as being suitable to be a care and protection organisation for a stated purpose. The Care and Protection Organisation Register can be located via the directorate’s website (https://www.communityservices.act.gov.au/quality-complaints-and-regulation/care-and-protection-organisation-register).
Relevant ACT Government employees are encouraged to use the online tool, My Community Directory. The directory is searchable by target group and provides up to date information for community groups and organisations that provide services in the Canberra area. The directory can be accessed at:
https://vc-act.mycommunitydirectory.com.au/Australian_Capital_Territory/Canberra.
Due to delivering holistic, wrap-around supports to the Canberra community, several organisations work across all cohorts, including children, young people and families. As such, organisations may be reflected in all three domains of the response below. It should also be noted that this is not an exhaustive list of all community organisations known across the ACT public service and may inadvertently have omitted some organisations. While best endeavours have been made, further work to respond would represent an unreasonable diversion of resources.
(a) To support children in the ACT region, the following community groups/organisations are known to the ACT Government:
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