Page 2898 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
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MRS DUNNE: Minister, what specific steps have you taken to ensure that health passports or equivalent information are available to children in out of home care and that the standard returns to at least what it was before you became the responsible minister?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: At this point I have sought advice on the steps that the directorate will take; I personally cannot distribute health passports to people. I have sought advice and I have made it very clear to the directorate that we need to improve this outcome. I have asked for data, and I note that the mid-strategy evaluation included data only up to the end of June last year. I have sought further advice on the current situation and what is being done to ensure that children who need health passports have them and what the next steps are in relation to future arrangements.
MRS KIKKERT: Minister, how are carers, including residential youth workers, supposed to make informed health decisions for vulnerable young people if this government has not provided them with the promised documents?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mrs Kikkert for the question. Carers of course do have a very important role to play in supporting children and young people in our out of home care system, and that includes supporting their health needs. As I have said, I have asked for further advice in relation to this matter. I am happy to come back to the Assembly in relation to that on notice.
Children and young people—care and protection
MR HANSON: My question is to the Minister for Children, Youth and Families: on 20 February this year you said you could absolutely assure the chamber that this government is providing a therapeutic trauma-informed response to young people in residential care. On 11 August the Canberra Times reported on a young person in residential care who was exposed to drug use and threatened by his housemates, including one incident where another boy broke in to his room with a knife. He became so frightened to leave his bedroom that he started urinating into a bottle. Minister, was this young person’s experience in residential care the therapeutic trauma-informed response you promised us back in February? If not, why is this therapeutic trauma-informed response failing?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mr Hanson for the question, but I think he is conflating a couple of issues. Clearly the young people in residential care are some of the most complex young people we have in out of home care. Their circumstances are all different, but the behaviour Mr Hanson describes is the behaviour of a housemate within a residential care facility; it is not the behaviour of staff and does not speak to either the trauma-informed support that the staff at Premier Youthworks have been providing or the therapeutic supports that the Australian Childhood Foundation has been supporting in partnership with those staff.
I have heard directly from young people who have had an experience of residential care or who are in residential care that yes, there are difficult circumstances. I hear those things directly from the young people themselves. Yes, one of the things that
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