Page 2186 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 3 August 2021

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gives them a toolkit of skills that they can use to look after their mental health and wellbeing and to look out for signs of mental illness or distress in themselves or in their peers. I note that there has now been more than 3,000 young people in year 9 who have participated in that Youth Aware of Mental Health program, which means that more than half of the 15- and 16-year-olds in the ACT will have had access to that program. That means that either they or someone in their social network will have been given those skills and will be able to look out for mental health in their peers.

MR DAVIS: Minister, earlier in estimates I heard about the youth navigation portal which your office is leading. Can you explain in more detail what that portal will do and advise when it will start?

MS DAVIDSON: Yes. The youth navigation portal is a very important tool to help young people in finding and accessing the right services and supports for their needs at the time. Where it is up to at the moment: following a procurement request for quote process, Marymead has been selected as the community organisation to lead and manage the portal. The office for Mental Health and Wellbeing and Marymead are working closely to continue stakeholder engagement and consultation with children and young people, with parents and carers and with service providers.

In early July of 2021, Capgemini was selected to build the IT component of the portal. That was through a separate request-for-quote procurement process, and the design process is underway. It will have an iterative release, and the first release will be in late September of 2021.

MRS JONES: How much of headspace Tuggeranong is funded by the ACT government and how much is funded by the federal Liberal government?

MS DAVIDSON: Headspace in Tuggeranong is a commonwealth program. It fits into a broad and diverse range of mental health services within the ACT, and we are very happy to have it here.

ACT Corrective Services—release process

MR HANSON: My question is to the Minister for Corrections. Minister, on 20 July this year, Canberra found out that a detainee had been mistakenly released from jail before completing his sentence. This detainee is a repeat offender who had already been denied bail. After being told to hand himself in, he said that he would “try”! But, ultimately, close to a week later, a warrant had to be issued for his arrest when he failed to turn himself in. You blamed human error caused by a database that requires manual checks across multiple files. This database system dates back to 1985, and the inspector of corrections said it was probably antiquated when the government bought it. Minister, for how long was this detainee at large under your watch?

MR GENTLEMAN: I thank Mr Hanson for the question. The accidental release was due to human error. Detainees can often be sentenced for a charge while also being on remand before either the Magistrates Court and/or the Supreme Court. The current release processes require manual checks of documents to occur. Due to the human error in this case, information in relation to this detainee’s remand was missed.


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