Page 6123 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011

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Every young person has a formal security classification assessment undertaken by a multi-disciplinary team. The security classification is the risk assessment that determines the type of search and the requirement for flex-cuffs (Use of Force) when a young person leaves Bimberi Youth Justice Centre.

Housing—supported accommodation

Ms Burch (in reply to a question by Ms Bresnan and supplementary questions by Ms Bresnan and Ms Le Couteur on Thursday, 17 November 2011):

1. The ACT Government evaluates unmet need through several data capture systems.

Firstly, there is an ACT specific extension questionnaire to the annual National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) collection. Clients who access the service system in a given year are able to express their need for additional services through this questionnaire. However, it should be noted that this is not a formally assessed need but rather an individuals expressed need.

The most recently published NMDS measure of unmet need is available in the 2010-11 Community Services Directorate’s Annual Report, in Volume 1, page 41, Table 3.

The second data collection on unmet need is through the Disability ACT (DACT) Registration of Interest. The Registration of Interest is another opportunity for individuals to register with DACT an expressed need for additional services.

Currently there are 159 people who have expressed unmet need on the Registration of Interest. Of these approximately 90% already access DACT funded services. 80 individuals are seeking accommodation support services over the next 5 years. DACT is actively working with 64 of the 159 individuals on their future support arrangements.

It should be noted that the data collected on unmet need is not a comprehensive measure of the level of unmet need for disability services in the ACT.

2. In 2010-11 DACT provided 434 accommodation support places to individuals with a disability. Some of these individuals also have a mental health condition.

In 2010-11 these 434 accommodation support places cost the ACT Government $46.8m.

3. Disability ACT has on average grown accommodation support places by 18 places per year. This average excludes the recent transfer of funding responsibility for younger people in residential aged care from the Commonwealth.

It is not possible to assign a meaningful percentage to the number of new accommodation support places funded by DACT in relation to unmet need.


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