Page 4079 - Week 13 - Thursday, 2 December 2021

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Planning, Transport and City Services—Standing Committee—Report 3—Draft Land Management Plan: Canberra Urban Lakes and Ponds (Revised Report)—Government response, dated 2 December 2021.

Waste Management and Resource Recovery Act, pursuant to subsection 64U(2)—ACT Container Deposit Scheme—Annual Statutory Report 20/21, dated December 2021.

Domestic Violence Prevention Council—progress report

MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Manager of Government Business, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Industrial Relations and Workplace Safety, Minister for Planning and Land Management and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (3.01): Pursuant to standing order 211, I move:

That the Assembly take note of the following paper:

Domestic Violence Prevention Council—Progress Report—Delivering the recommendations made by the Council following their Extraordinary Meeting on Children and Young People.

MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Early Childhood Development, Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, Minister for Housing and Suburban Development, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (3.01): Today I am giving an update on the work that the ACT government is doing to deliver new and improved domestic and family violence service responses for children and young people.

Children and young people can be profoundly impacted by violence in the home, even when this violence is not directed at them. Yet children and young people are often forgotten or do not have a voice. That is why the Domestic Violence Prevention Council, the DVPC, held an extraordinary meeting in 2018 focusing on the needs of children and young people affected by domestic and family violence, including sexual violence. The DVPC report shone a light on the unique needs of young people.

In 2019 the ACT government accepted, or accepted in principle, the five DVPC report recommendations to develop and improve the justice and service sector responses to children and young people. In responding to the DVPC report, the government noted the importance of hearing the voices of children and young people, and involving children and young people in the co-design of services and responses.

The Office of the Coordinator-General for Family Safety and the ACT Children and Young People Commissioner then partnered to listen to young people talk about their experiences of family violence. The result of the consultations is 13 insights that speak to the unique and complex experiences that young people have of family violence. The insights are a powerful reflection of just how difficult it is for young people to be heard, to be respected and to find a pathway to safety that suits their individual needs. What we heard has helped to identify what improvements could be made to services.


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