Page 1135 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 2 April 2019
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fundamental shift in the provision of services in the out of home care sector. In order to determine the overall success of the A step up for our kids strategy the ACTÂ government engaged the specialist services of KPMG to develop an outcomes-based evaluation framework, including indicators to measure strategy outcomes; conduct an initial baseline review to determine the suitability of measures and establish a performance benchmark; and perform a mid-strategy evaluation against the agreed outcomes.
The Community Services Directorate has been working closely with our community partner agencies over the last six months on data collection and I am pleased to advise that KPMG is in the final stages of preparing the mid-strategy evaluation for public release.
In addition to the evaluation and ongoing monitoring of service delivery, the Community Services Directorate has recently completed a mid-term contract review of the six agencies funded under the strategy. The mid-term contract review comprised an independent contract audit to ascertain how each organisation was performing against the contract to make an assessment of their financial sustainability and governance arrangements. Following the contract audit, discussions were held with all funded agencies to make an overall assessment of system performance and identify whether there were any service gaps or opportunities for improvements to the implementation of A step up for our kids.
I am acutely aware of the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the statutory child protection system and am committed to developing better ways of working in order to respond to the issues and to drive change in this area. In my October 2018 ministerial statement I welcomed the release of the interim report by the Our Booris, Our Way steering committee on 31 August. I am pleased to advise that the ACT government continues to act on the recommendations from the interim report.
The directorate received interim recommendations which covered cultural proficiency for child and youth protection service staff, implementation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child placement principles within policy and practice, and access to the family group conferencing initiative for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people.
The ACT government has commenced work to address the recommendations as part of an ongoing commitment to reducing over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the statutory child protection system, including establishing a designated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practice leader position within child and youth protection services who will play a key role in supporting and embedding the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander placement principles.
The development of a practice guide and training schedule for staff, on the implementation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child placement principles in practice, and continued support for staff to undertake the child and youth protection services cultural development program are designed to provide staff with
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