Page 1241 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 2021

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form to provide CYPS with substantially more information regarding risk factors for children who may be the subject of family law proceedings.

Further, the Community Services Directorate is currently working to respond to a significant number of recommendations from a range of reviews, inquiries and reports. This includes 51 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, eight recommendations of the Glanfield review, 34 recommendations of the Our Booris, Our Way review, and 53 recommendations of the recent Legislative Assembly inquiry into child and youth protection services. These recommendations focus heavily on building a child and youth protection service system that is restorative, contemporary, and underpinned by good decision-making and communication.

This work has driven change right across government, to improve information sharing and the interaction between ACT government directorates, agencies and service providers. The coronial inquest has made a further 14 recommendations in relation to CYPS, and the government will have more to say on how these recommendations will fit into and further inform our existing reform agenda when we provide our formal response to the report.

The government also continues to address family violence through Safer Families initiatives to ensure those experiencing domestic and family violence get the help and support they need. This has included further work driven by recommendations from the Glanfield review, as well as recommendations from the review of domestic and family violence deaths in the Australian Capital Territory by the Domestic Violence Prevention Council and the ACT domestic violence service system final gap analysis report by the Community Services Directorate.

In June 2016, when the ACT government outlined its commitment to action in the ACT government response to the family violence report, it took action to appoint the Coordinator-General for Family Safety, a full-time position to lead change and provide accountability across the service system; implement a collaborative and integrated approach to service re-design and improvement through the Family Safety Hub; and build collaborative practices and further develop a skilled and educated workforce, especially front-line staff, in responding to the needs of adults and children experiencing family violence.

We have continued to work to make changes to legislation, policy, practice and culture to shape reform. The 2020-21 budget invested $24.4 million over four years for Safer Families initiatives. This funding supports a range of initiatives that strengthen the capacity of front-line services to respond to domestic and family violence, improve coordination across government, build important partnerships with the community sector and test promising new approaches.

The Office of the Coordinator-General for Family Safety works closely with the sector to understand the ongoing needs of women and children and families seeking help. We continue to invest strongly in our primary domestic and family violence responses. In 2020-21, DVCS and the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre received nearly $1.1 million in government support. In addition, we funded a further $3.25 million in


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