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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (5 September) . . Page.. 3122 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

In its response to the recommendation asking that existing early intervention programs and further programs for students be developed, including parental involvement, the Government stated that it would maintain existing programs. An early intervention policy that services families has been launched recently. (Extension of time granted) This service is for families with children from birth to their entry into the school system only. Discussions are under way to establish a new program for primary age students with severe behavioural or emotional problems who require more intensive programs, and the program will offer opportunities for parental involvement. So, once again, we are having more discussions, which is very frustrating for people working in the field, and frustrating for people who spend a lot of time working on these committees. They come out with recommendations that have a good foundation of evidence, only to see that we are just getting more discussions.

We recommended that a strategy for the provision of family support services be developed. The Government apparently considers that it already commits considerable resources to this, although that conflicts with the preamble of this response because the Government stated on page 5:

Support for families will continue to be a government priority with emphasis given to the further development of family counselling and other family support services.

It is good when you read that in the preamble. "Further development" implies that there is going to be more work done in this absolutely critical area; but unfortunately, in their response to the recommendation, they contradict themselves there and claim that they already do enough.

Of course, the recommendation regarding the publicity campaign for these services that apparently do exist was not agreed to, which is also very disappointing. It is clear that it is not always easy for people to access information about services. This has come up in every Social Policy Committee inquiry we have had - the difficulty in accessing information, whether it is in disabilities, mental health, or aged issues. It is very confusing. We have so much information. Asking for a publicity campaign that really highlights in a clear way what services are available for parent support would seem to be a very constructive suggestion. I repeat that this is child protection week. I would have thought it would have been a great gesture from this Government to say, "Yes, we need to make very public what services we do have, and what services the community sector provides as well, of course, for parents who are having difficulties". We presented a recommendation regarding increased funding for counselling services and to provide greater access to family counselling. The Government supported the intent of this recommendation, once again, but it does not look as though anything particular is going to happen.

The last recommendation was about the untying of grants. At the moment it looks as though we are going to have a lot of these tied grants untied or broadbanded, and there is great concern because a lot of the equity programs in the ACT are presently funded by tied grants from the Commonwealth. Even though that money will be broadbanded, the committee was asking that you keep that money for those critical programs.

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