Page 3469 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 22 October 2014
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relatives of those with a mental illness, who all provide invaluable support to our community. However, what is of greatest importance here today, what we are here to speak about, is the acknowledgement of carers and Carers Week and the recognition of the role that carers play.
Reaching out to someone in a caring role can help them feel less excluded and isolated, and it is important to say that this is not unique to Carers Week. Similar intentions cross over to recognition in events like R U OK? Day, mental health awareness day, Social Inclusion Week, International Day of People with Disability, foster carers week and many other awareness events.
For example, this week is also Children’s Week. We must recognise that children have a right to be just children, yet there are many children in our territory who are carers themselves and need support in Carers Week, but, I stress, at all times. It is about community and reaching out to other members of our community to include them, support them and show our respect and appreciation for the role they play. I commend the motion to the Assembly.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Minister for Planning, Minister for Community Services, Minister for Workplace Safety and Industrial Relations, Minister for Children and Young People and Minister for Ageing) (3.36): I thank Ms Lawder for bringing forward her motion today and for her work with our office to ensure that we could all agree on the one motion. The subject matter of this motion is critically important to the whole Canberra community. Taking time to reflect on the commitment and contribution of all carers is absolutely appropriate, particularly following last week’s celebration of Carers Week 2014.
Carers come from all walks of life and can be almost any age. They play a vital role in helping to make our community a vibrant, functioning and inclusive place to live. Our community is a better place because of the role carers all do for us. The government values the role that carers play in our community. In 2011 the ACT carers charter, which was launched by my colleague Minister Burch, outlined the rights that all carers in the ACT should expect. These principles lay the foundation for our government’s vision of how best to recognise and support the vital work that carers do in our community, how to engage with carers on matters that impact on them, not only as carers but as individuals in their own right, and how we as a community can value and respect carers.
In the ACT the term “carer” encompasses a diversity of individuals performing a caring role. The charter defines a carer as “a person who provides unpaid care to someone else who is dependent on the person for ongoing care and assistance”. This definition includes people who provide informal care and support to friends and relatives with needs associated with disability, ageing, ongoing physical or mental illness, or substance abuse, as well as grandparents, approved kinship carers or foster carers who provide a caring role to children and young people.
The ACT carers charter outlines five principles that inform the support and services provided to carers. These are: carers are engaged in matters that affect them as carers, carers are consulted in the development and evaluation of services, carers are valued
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