Get ready NT, election day is coming up on Saturday, 24 August!
CREATE is calling on all sides of government in the Northern Territory to make a firm commitment to ensure that they place the needs of the most vulnerable Territorians at the heart of policy decisions for the coming years.
Based on what young people have told us, we’re asking the next government to…
Provide more resources to support young people to stay connected to Mob, biological family, friends, and community
Deliver more resources and monitoring for transitioning from care services
Guarantee housing for care leavers
Guarantee an independent living allowance of $16,000 per year for young people transitioning from care up to the age of 25
Bolster accountability for out-of-home care services
Prioritise connection to culture for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in care
Read more about our key asks below.
The new government must:
- Increase resourcing to ACCOs and ACCO-led family support services to provide support for Aboriginal children, young people and their families.
- Commit to referring Aboriginal children and young people to their closest ACCO, immediately upon contact with the care system.
- Commit to placing all Aboriginal children and young people in with accordance with the ATSICPP.
- Support the right to contact with Mob, family, siblings, friends and community.
- Implement a siblings and family contact plan into each care plan.
- Allocate funding to support contact and visits.
- Provide Aboriginal children and young people with timely access to high-quality cultural planning that includes a cultural plan developed with relevant family members, cultural networks and community.
- ACCOs are best to lead this work.
- Increase flexible funding to ensure that case plans and activities are in alignment with each child’s cultural needs.
- Implement accountability measures, to ensure that Aboriginal young people are provided with a cultural care plan as soon as possible as a legislative requirement Care and Protection of Children Amendment Act (2023) (NT).
- Implement data collection for culturally and linguistically diverse young people and on the reporting status for culture.
- Share this data with the sector including ACCOs and ACCO-led family support services.
- Develop a best practice guide for caseworkers and support workers to preserve families and improve connection to culture and community, while helping young people return to family safely. Consider example:
- Recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are best placed to make informed decisions about the safety, wellbeing and protection needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to ensure self-determination.
The new government must:
- Address service gaps across the Northern Territory by bolstering community services that can effectively respond to transitions or crisis by scaling up supports when needed.
- Prepare caseworkers for the realities of working in child protection, including casework and what it entails, and potential workloads to anchor new practitioners with realistic expectations.
- Implement strategies to strengthen workforce capacity ensuring that young people have access to a quality caseworker support.
- Caseworker retention efforts should include workplace culture improvements that promote wellbeing for workers and create conditions that are helpful to producing good outcomes (support, time and care) for young people with a care experience.
- Establish mechanisms to ensure caseworkers are allocated realistic caseloads and are supported to practice in ways that allow them to have regular face to face contact required to build trust with young people.
- Case workers should also genuinely facilitate opportunities for children and young people to participate in decision making about their lives.
- Increase accountability and transparency measures for caseworker support, transitioning from care planning, Aboriginal Child Placement Principles implementation, contact with birth families and siblings, cultural contact planning, participation in activities, health and wellbeing planning and decision making.
- Fund an advocate dedicated to young people with a care experience, who would visit young people in care, hear their voices, provide individual advocacy as well monitor the implementation of National Standards.
The new government must:
- Provide a sufficient supply of appropriate and affordable housing for young carer leavers with a deliberate focus on Aboriginal young people.
- Implement innovative Aboriginal-led housing options for young care leavers in settings that are culturally rich and managed by the community.
- Provide access to culturally appropriate and affordable housing that is geographically located near family and community.
- Implement flexible measures for extended family members to reside in any shared housing to support the young person. (Aboriginal young people require access to kin).
- Ensure housing locations are close to extended family members as family responsibilities are central to Aboriginal care leavers.
- Commit to a housing guarantee for care leavers up to the age of 25.
- Invest in safe and culturally appropriate housing models for Aboriginal care leavers.
- CREATE recommends investigating urban models like the Youth Foyers for potential urban settings. These have been demonstrated to be successful as well as cost effective in helping young people at risk transition to independence (Youth Foyers, 2024).
- Young people who are unable to secure accommodation privately and need to access housing through the guaranteed scheme should be able to choose between three options.
- Extending their care placement.
- Accessing appropriate social housing.
- Entering supported independent living arrangements.
The next Government must introduce a specific ‘Independent Living Allowance’ for all young people leaving care of $16,000 per year.
This allowance should be opt-out rather than opt-in to ensure young people do not miss out on the support available and to reduce the administrative burden of processing applications. And it should be appropriately reviewed with the payment indexed in line with increases to the cost of living.
CREATE would also like the Government to consider flexible funding to support young people to access further education or gain employment. This could include funding to support job readiness such a preparation for interview, transport, clothing and skills development.
Aboriginal Housing Northern Territory. (n.d.). What we want. https://ahnt.org.au/what-we-want/
Australian Institute of Family Studies. (2023). First Nations care leavers: Supporting better transitions. https://aifs.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-09/CFCA-PG-Supporting-transitions-First-Nations-care-leavers.pdf
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2023). Child protection Australia 2021–22. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/child-protection/child-protection-australia-2021-22/data
Crawford, B., Yamazaki, R., Franke, E., Amanatidis, S., Ravulo, J., Steinbeck, K., Ritchie, J., & Torvaldsen, S. (2014). Sustaining dignity? Food insecurity in homeless young people in urban Australia. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 25(2), 71-78. https://doi.org/10.1071/he13090
Crawford, B., Yamazaki, R., Franke, E., Amanatidis, S., Ravulo, J., & Torvaldsen, S. (2015). Is something better than nothing? Food insecurity and eating patterns of young people experiencing homelessness. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 39(4), 350-354. https://doi.org/10.1111/1753-6405.12371
McDowall, J. J. (2020). Transitioning to Adulthood from Out-of-Home Care: Independence or Interdependence? . https://create.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CREATE-Post-Care-Report-2021-LR.pdf
Mendes, P., Standfield, R., Saunders, B., McCurdy, S., Walsh, J., & Turnbull, L. (2021). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) young people leaving out-of-home care in Australia: A national scoping study. Children and Youth Services Review, 121, 105848. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105848
Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care. (2023a). About. Retrieved 2024, January 31, from https://www.snaicc.org.au/about-snaicc-who-we-are/
Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care. (2023b). Family Matters Report 2023. https://www.snaicc.org.au/resources/family-matters-report-2023/
United Nations. (2007). Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. . https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/Declaration_indigenous_en.pdf
Watson, D., Mhlaba, M., Molelekeng, G., Chauke, T. A., Simao, S. C., Jenner, S., Ware, L. J., & Barker, M. (2023). How do we best engage young people in decision-making about their health? A scoping review of deliberative priority setting methods. International Journal for Equity in Health, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-022-01794-2
Youth Foyers. (2024). Retrieved 2024, June 06 from https://foyer.org.au/foyers-in-australia/
First time voting?
If you are an Australian citizen, have lived at your current address for at least a month and turn 18 on or before election day on 24 August, you will be able to vote.
Make sure you are enrolled to vote and/or your address is up to date by 2 August 2024.
Ways to vote
There are different ways to vote including casting your vote on election day, early voting, or postal voting. When you vote, you will be asked to rank all the candidates. Watch the video below to see what your ballot paper will look like.
Parties and candidates have different priorities and plans for what they want to do once elected, so you may want to research candidates in advance to make an informed decision on voting day!
Find more about the candidates in the 2024 Territory Election.
How the NT election works
The election will choose the new 25 members of the Legislative Assembly, which is the Parliament of the Northern Territory. The Parliament makes important decisions about policies that impact on your life – including reforms for out-of-home care!
The 25 seats are elected in each of the electorates. This means that you will be electing a representative for your electorate. Find your electorate here.
The election will also form the new Northern Territory Government – a cabinet of Ministers with different portfolios, including the Minister for Territory Families.
What young people told us
On the importance of listening
- “They should ask and listen. I want to be involved, it’s mainly about being heard, not how you view me, how I view myself and how I’m feeling.”
- “Having a caseworker for starters, one that listens and stays with you so you can trust them are all important.”
On safeguarding connections
- “[There should be] more support around culture. I only hear other people talk about culture but never caseworkers.”
- “My culture is a big worry cause if I don’t know anything, then I can’t pass anything on and it will eventually die out.”
- “Don’t really see my biological family, I might see them once a month if they come down from community… Cultural linkage is a big deal for me, I’d like to spend more time with my culture learning their language a bit more.”
- “There should be a maximum of case loads for workers.”
- “[There should be] better family reconnections, more access.”
On the need for more resources and more accountability
- “There should be a maximum of case loads for workers.”
- “No two young people are the same, one solution isn’t going to fix the problem, I would do better at one on one.”
- “I feel like its understaffed there should be a section primarily based on children in care and their needs. It would be good to hire someone who focuses on young people and their issues, like an advocate.”
On transition supports (help for young people leaving care)
- “I think there is not enough money in the leaving care memos, the money that we do get we can only spend at furniture stores, we get 3000 max, if you include TILA and whitegoods.”
- “[We need a] different model, start planning at 16/17 years old, youth worker meetings with young people.”
Got a question for CREATE?
Contact our Advocacy and Influencing team for more information on advocacy@create.org.au
