Page 1762 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 June 2014
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A number of these services have expressed an interest in delivering early intervention programs here in the ACT. This is an extremely positive movement. Providers that have put their names forward and that are quite happy for me to name them today include Northcott, Yooralla, House with No Steps, and the Cerebral Palsy Alliance. We will continue to work with KPMG to develop a responsive sector as we withdraw from these services at the end of this school year. I am pleased to say that we have a healthy list of more than 25 providers who we will be targeting in the next few weeks to step into this space.
From the beginning of term 4, I have made a commitment to be able to provide the families with concrete information about what and who will step into this space to provide early intervention services. I have said that publicly. I said it on Monday and I have reflected it in the amendments to Mr Wall’s motion. KPMG will be conducting focus groups with families who use early intervention to help inform them about what the future services will look like. Some will want the services not to change in any way, shape or form. But some parents I have spoken to value the opportunity and look forward to the opportunity of having something different on offer that may be provided through the NDIS.
At the Monday forum it was clear that parents and families wanted quality early intervention services, but it was also clear that parents were anxious. I take that point. I have mentioned, and I will continue to do so, to people I meet in my office and people I meet out and about at various community forums and elsewhere that we know and understand the value and the importance of early interventions in the early lives of young children with disability or with developmental delay.
Providers need to come to the ACT and give families the certainty they need about future services. The NDIS provider registration, which has only just opened, already has lots of people and organisations that are getting on board. We want to see more of this. This is why the government is targeting funding to ensure that early intervention providers are ready for the beginning of 2015.
We are also working with providers to plan for 2015 and we welcome ongoing conversations as more come on board. At the forum I said that we will do all we can to support new providers entering the ACT. If this means maintaining a presence within schools, then we will do that.
I will reflect on one of the questions I was asked about the schools by a very strong advocate of support for autistic children and their families. Currently, where we have a program running that has an appropriate and adequate playing area and internal equipment in the rooms, it is right for us as a sensible government and, indeed, as a good community citizen to continue to provide that space if a provider wants it and if it suits the family, particularly in these transition periods.
I have made commitments to families to have information about the providers, as I have said, by term 4. I have no doubt in my mind that we need to make the NDIS work for children with a developmental delay or with a disability and for their families. This involves creating the conditions for the success of the non-government providers.
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