Page 1970 - Week 07 - Thursday, 13 August 2020
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In recognition that decision-making is often best done by family and kin, in November 2017 the ACT government commenced a family group conferencing, or FGC pilot program, with Aboriginal-owned organisation Curijo. In the 2018-19 budget the government committed an additional $1.4 million for the ongoing operations of the program. FGC diverts families away from Children’s Court processes and empowers them to participate and contribute to decisions about the safety of their children.
The latest figures provided for this year’s The Family Matters Report show that, from November 2017 to July 2020, 41 families have been involved in a family group conference, involving 89 children. Of these, 54 children have subsequently not entered care. For 35 children, decisions about the best care arrangements were made by extended family.
We have also invested in functional family therapy child welfare, or FFT, which is delivered by the Aboriginal-controlled organisation Gugan Gulwan Youth Aboriginal Corporation, in partnership with OzChild. FFT aims to reduce the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people entering child protection or out of home care, through interventions that strengthen families and communities. The Family Matters Report 2019 found:
So far, FFT has seen promising results with 24 families and 68 children in total being strongly engaged in the program. None of the children have entered out-of-home care since accessing the program.
The most recent figures show that 112 children and young people have been supported to stay with 31 families involved with FFT. Last year Family Matters also found that while FFT was delivering promising results, “preventative efforts in the Australian Capital Territory remain inadequate to eliminate the rising rate of over-representation”. We agree that there is further work to do and that FTC and FFT are not the only answers.
It is encouraging that the rate of over-representation in children and young people coming into care has, in fact, significantly reduced over the last two years. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people represented 11 per cent of those entering care in the first half of 2019. This is still an unacceptable level of over-representation but compares to 13 per cent in the same period in 2018-19, 35 per cent in the same period in 2017-18, and 32 per cent in the same period in 2016-17. What this means, in terms of numbers, is that the six Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people entering care in the first half of 2019-20 compares with seven in the same period in 2018-19, 29 in the same period in 2017-18, and 35 in the same period in 2016-17. FGC and FFT will not keep every at-risk child and young person out of the care system but they are clearly having a positive impact.
In speaking to the tabling of this government response to the Our Booris, Our Way review, I stress that this is only a point in time. This report summarises the progress that we have made over the past two years in considering and progressing actions under the recommendations of the review; but we know that this is a long road. Our
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