Page 2510 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 31 July 2019
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interpersonal relationships, social and recreational activities, and other adolescent developmental milestones.
The day service will provide a therapeutic program for the continued recovery of adolescents who have been discharged or who have previously presented to the emergency department and would benefit from the day service programs to avoid a possible readmission. But, again, while this is all of benefit to young people and their families, it still does not fully answer the needs of the likely very small number of young people in the ACT who may need a highly specialised and targeted response to help them overcome a range of multiple issues.
This is where we share some concerns around the ACT’s lack of therapeutic orders and places of treatment support. This is what we must get better at and this is where our focus should be in our view. I support the call for consultation with experts about whether compulsory therapeutic drug treatment models for young people with complex substance use disorders, including the model based on Magistrate Bowles’s research and recommendations, should be implemented in the ACT. It is important to ask the question and to make sure that we are keeping up to date with the latest research.
However, this consultation should also include the scoping of alternative options to compulsory treatment in order to address the complex needs of some young people. As I mentioned earlier, there is some debate about whether compulsory treatment is the best option. But one thing I am clear about is that we need to have a suite of options available to young people with problematic drug use and that those programs, whatever they are, need to have a trauma focus in order to be effective. We are happy to support Mrs Kikkert’s motion today, with the amendment from Minister Stephen-Smith.
MRS KIKKERT (Ginninderra) (3.04): I thank those who have spoken in favour of this motion and its intent. Mr Rattenbury spoke about why we have not implemented compulsory drug rehabilitation for people. I want to reiterate and remind him that Magistrate Bowles’s report includes evidence that compulsory treatment, if carried out correctly, can be effective. She quotes one Swedish expert as saying:
For a long time, we considered treatment had to be voluntary ... but here—
In Sweden—
they studied groups, one mandatory and the other voluntary and they couldn’t see any difference.
If it is working in Sweden, perhaps it could work here in Australia because we are all human beings. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to move this motion. I especially want to thank the heroic parents who have come to me to raise this issue. They love and worry over their children. They want them to be safe. They want to give them the best opportunity to enjoy productive lives and live up to their full potential.
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