Page 2900 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
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should be investigated, or the senior practitioner if they have concerns about the use of restrictive practices in those facilities. As I mentioned earlier, child and youth protection services senior management also pays close attention to residential care. Whenever complaints are received, these are taken very seriously.
I take my responsibility as Minister for Children, Youth and Families very seriously. I am often briefed on individual client matters and I pay close attention particularly to those children and young people who are in residential care, some of the most complex and traumatised children and young people in our system. I take that responsibility very seriously, but I am absolutely confident that, with the oversight we have in place with the Public Advocate, the Children and Young People Commissioner, official visitors and the attention that we all pay to residential care, there is a lot of oversight of this system.
Children and young people—care and protection
MRS JONES: My question is to the Minister for Children, Youth and Families. Minister, youth workers previously employed in the ACT’s residential care system have shared with us a long list of concerns, including lack of training, understaffing, long waits for therapeutic plans, unsuitable placements, unsafe environments and difficulty in accessing counselling for children. You recently said that the departure of the current provider is an opportunity to “build in some more innovative approaches to how we deliver residential care” and make sure that children and young people are “in the best spot they can be”. Minister, over the past 2½ years you have been responsible. Why have you not previously made sure that young people in residential care are in the best spot possible?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mrs Jones for the question and ignore the imputation. I think it is a fair question. Children and young people in residential care obviously have case management across Barnados, OzChild and child and youth protection services. As I said, there has been significant oversight. I have paid a lot of attention to this since I have become minister, and over the past couple of years there has been significant oversight in the way that residential care is being delivered. But the departure of Premier Youthworks does provide an opportunity for us to look at some of the models that are being delivered by other providers in other jurisdictions and how we can work to deliver the most effective and appropriate models that meet the individual needs of children and young people in residential care.
One of the challenges we face in our community is that we are a relatively small jurisdiction with a relatively small number of children and young people, who are not able to live in home-based environments or in foster or kinship care, and developing specialist services for a very small number of children and young people is quite a challenge. But we are committed to doing that. This is an opportunity, and child and youth protection services has taken the opportunity, to look very closely at the circumstances of each of these children and young people and to try to work out with Barnados what the best solution for each of those children and young people is going forward.
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