Page 698 - Week 02 - Thursday, 16 February 2017
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therefore limited. As the new Client Management System is built CYPS will explore methodology to monitor the experience of parents with disabilities in the child protection system.
(2) Children are taken into care when they have experienced serious abuse and/or neglect and there is no one with parental responsibility both willing and able to protect the child. CYPS seeks to have children cared for by their wider family and engages with the birth family to safely restore children as a first option.
Where parents with disability are the subject of investigations and case management interventions, CYPS seeks to ensure appropriate supports are in place for reasonable adjustments to be made to ensure children are safe at home. The removal of children from their families is the action of last resort taken when children and young people are considered at immediate risk of abuse or neglect.
When CYPS takes a decision to take children into care, evidence supporting this decision must be presented to the Children’s Court. The Children’s Court Magistrate is the decision maker about whether children are returned home or remain in care.
Under the ACT Government’s Out of Home Care Strategy, A Step Up for Our Kids, new services have been implemented to support parents with children in care, or with children at risk of entering care, including parents with a disability.
Since December 2015, the Australian Red Cross has been delivering the Birth Family Advocacy Support Service. This service provides independent information and support to parents with children in care, or with children at risk of entering care. It aims to empower parents to effectively, and in an informed way, understand and participate in child protection processes.
From January 2016, Uniting began delivering a range of new services to vulnerable families in the ACT community through the Strengthening High Risk Families domain under A Step Up for Our Kids.
Uniting’s Child and Families ACT program delivers services that are focussed on providing supports within families to prevent children from coming into care, or returning them home as soon as it is safe to do so.
Budget—public servants
(Question No 39)
Mr Coe asked the Chief Minister, upon notice, on 16 December 2016 (redirected to the Treasurer):
(1) What has been the total number of ACT Government employees, broken down by month, from January 2007 to December 2016.
(2) Given the importance of ACT-based Commonwealth public servants to the ACT economy, are actual or estimated ACT-based Commonwealth public servant numbers part of the analysis conducted in preparing the ACT Budget; if so, what are the actual or estimated numbers of ACT-based Commonwealth public servants from 2007 to 2016 used in preparing the ACT Budget.
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