Page 1451 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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I can only imagine the frustration and despair of parents when they are continually denied basic support services and yet see another report, brochure, statement or policy direction. With regard to the Love has its limits report, I do not want it to be yet another report that sits on a shelf and is a dust collector. The government can provide a simple measure that can make a considerable difference to the lives of carers and these parents of children with a disability. This motion is about ensuring that it actually happens. Consistent with this motion, the committee recommended:
… that the ACT Government seek to establish after-school care programs at the four ACT Government special schools, The Woden School, Black Mountain School, Cranleigh School and Malkara School to ease the pressure on respite care services and working carers.
In response to years of agitation from community groups and a number of committed parents, Minister Burch recently announced that she would fund a costed business case to determine the efficacy of a specialist after-school and vacation care program for students attending ACT special schools. I want to make it very clear that the Greens do not believe that such an essential service should be subjected to a business case. This is not a service that needs to demonstrate that it can pay. A business case is entirely inappropriate. The Greens do, however, believe that there should be an assessment to determine possible service delivery models and consider best practice measures. The Greens take best practice and quality seriously and this is why I have included this in the motion. I note that the government’s amendments are now moving away from a business case to a scoping study.
I want to put the words of a Belconnen mother of a child with a severe disability on the record. This is what she thought about the idea of a business case:
If these families get appropriate and long term after school care for their children we will be able to work, stay off welfare and contribute to the ACT community. We will be able to make connections with people through our work and escape the terrible social isolation that can come with having a child with a disability. We can avoid the debilitating depression that can come about from such isolation and the hard work of caring for a person with a disability. We can avoid having to abandon our children in respite because we can no longer cope. There’s your business case, ACT Government.
Disability services are in a parlous state across the country. Parents and carers fight for basic services, often having very poor access to respite. Some, when they feel they have nothing left, hand their children over to authorities. It seems that here in the ACT we are in a similar state with parents going to extreme lengths to get respite and after-school care in order to hold down employment. The ACT government’s 2004-07 policy, caring for carers, states:
… carers should have choices, receive support to make decisions about the caring role and have their own needs recognised by human services; people requiring care should not be solely dependent on the resources and good will of their immediate family or social network; and a range of other supports provided by the community should be available to offer choice and any assistance necessary to achieve a quality of life that is in accordance with community standards.
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