Get ready ACT! Election day is Saturday, 19 October.
In the weeks leading up to the election, CREATE Foundation is calling on all sides of Government to treat children in the care system with greater care.
The ACT Government must resource early intervention services, prioritise and expand transition supports for young people in care who are transitioning to independence, and advance self-determination for Aboriginal children and young people, families and communities.
The ACT has 688 children and young people living in out-of-home care and 216 (31%) of these children and young people identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (AIHW, 2024). As a result of entering the care system, children and young people come into contact with multiple systems and people including housing and health. We’ve compiled some key asks based on what they’ve told us needs to change.
Based on what young people have told us, we’re asking the next government to…
Transform the child protection system by continuing with updates to the Children and Young People Act 2008
Guarantee an independent living allowance of $16,000 per year for young people leaving care
Provide housing support for young people leaving care up to the age of 25
Implement the 'Our Booris Our Way' report in full
Read more about our key asks below.
The next Government should:
- Implement proposed legislative changes to the Children and Young People Act 2008 to prioritise early intervention and family preservation. This will help to reduce the number of families experiencing prolonged contact with the child protection system.
- Commit to appropriately resourcing the child protection system as a whole (i.e., invest in early intervention while continuing to fund/resource the out-of-home care system for those already living in care).
- Consider conducting an annual survey of children and young people in care, similar to Queensland’s ‘My Life in Care Survey,’ to better understand young people’s experiences in relation to safety, security and stability; health; learning, earning and development; transitioning from care; and participation, belonging and identity.
- If conducted annually, the data can be analysed over time to pinpoint areas for improvement and could also feed into existing reporting around wellbeing in the ACT via the ACT Wellbeing Framework Dashboard.
- Develop a practice guide to support the shift towards delivering more early intervention support, including family preservation programs. The practice guide should consider evidence-based models and relationship-based practice for preserving families, allowing for flexibility in adjusting the type, intensity and duration of support provided.
- In line with recommendations from Our Booris, Our Way Review, fund early supports and services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families, and support delivery by ACCOs to families in an effort to reduce overrepresentation rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in care.
- Work with the community sector to develop effective workforce planning and retention strategies that prioritise sustainable workloads and reduction of administrative burden. Retention efforts should also include workplace culture improvements that promote wellbeing for workers and create conditions that are conducive to producing good outcomes (support, time and care) for young people with a care experience (Charles Sturt University, 2021).
We are calling on the next Government to 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.
Guaranteed housing placements for young people with a care experience up to the age of 25 are needed to assist young people in securing safe and affordable housing. This should include:
- introducing a rental subsidy that is targeted for young people leaving care up to age 25 to help them enter the private rental market and maintain their tenancies.
- increasing the availability of safe, secure and affordable housing options by considering innovative housing models such as Youth Foyers which can provide more supported accommodation options for young people leaving care. FoyerInvest and Foyer Foundation (2024) estimates that Youth Foyers can create $89,000 in benefits for State Governments per young person, through avoided social housing, health and justice costs.
In the spirit of self-determination, CREATE supports the Aboriginal community-controlled sector in calling for adequate and proportionate resourcing of Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations to meet the needs of Aboriginal children, families and communities in culturally safe ways.
Children and young people who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander make up approximately 31% of the care population in the ACT (AIHW, 2024). This is particularly concerning given that only 9,000 people identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander in the ACT in the 2021 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census; making up only 2.0% of the ACT population (ABS, 2022). More needs to be done to interrupt cycles of contact with child protection and care systems for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, young people and families that have resulted in the enduring over-representation of Aboriginal children.
The new Government must:
- implement of all recommendations from Our Booris Our Way. In doing so, the new Government would acknowledge that the solutions to addressing systemic failures that continue to result in the overrepresentation of Aboriginal children and young people in care already exist and that the only way forward is implementation in full. This should include funding early supports and services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2022, June 28). Snapshot of Australian Capital Territory. ABS. https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/snapshot-act-2021.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2021). Australia’s Youth: Young People in Out-of-Home Care. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/children-youth/young-people
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2024). Child protection Australia 2021–22. Retrieved from https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/child-protection/child-protection-australia-2021-22
Charles Sturt University. (2021). Identification of key determinants of caseworker workplace wellbeing in Family and Community Services, NSW. https://psa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Caseworker-Wellbeing-Report-CSU-2020.pdf
Cortis, N., Blaxland, M. and Adamson, E. (2021). Counting the Costs: Sustainable funding for the ACT community services sector. Sydney: UNSW Social Policy Research Centre. https://actcoss.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2021-report-Counting-the-Costs_1.pdf
FoyerInvest and Foyer Foundation. (2024). FoyerInvest 2024–25 Budget Submission. https://foyer.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/FoyerInvest-2024-25-Budget-Submission.pdf
Stein, M. (2016). Foreword. In P. Mendes & P. Snow (Eds.), Young people transitioning from out-of-home care. Palgrave Macmillan
Ways to vote
Never voted in an election before? Here is a quick guide for what you need to do:
- Enrol to vote
- Find a polling place
- On polling day, go to a polling place, get your name marked off the electoral roll and get your ballot. Choose the candidate you think will do the best job, and then put your ballot paper in the ballot box.
- Wait to find out the results! The Australian Electoral Commission has developed a guide to support you vote.
How the ACT state election works
Canberra is divided into five electorates—Brindabella, Ginninderra, Kurrajong, Murrumbidgee and Yerrabi. Five members are elected in each electorate, making a 25-member Assembly. Members are elected for a fixed four-year term. This means that they will be your representative in Parliament for this time. Check out the Election and Voting FAQs for more.
What young people told us
On transforming the child protection system
- “We were born in different states so we were separated and now I don’t have connection. I have seen her once. Now I’m over 18 I have curiosity about my family and I can’t find my family and can’t get support [to work through the process of doing so].”
- “Sometimes in my life I have had caseworkers who don’t talk to me directly and go to the adult. When ideally, I would be informed and answer the questions.”
- “When I entered care, they kept taking me from house to another house and I didn’t have a chance to stay there for long.”
On supporting First Nations children and young people
- “Become culturally aware and make sure you have done some cultural awareness training.”
- “It is important that a caseworker understands my cultural needs. They can be offensive to culture and not even realise they are doing it.”
On transition supports (help for young people leaving care)
- “I have had zero contact from caseworker [when planning my transition from care] and don’t know about this. I can’t even remember if I’ve had a caseworker.”
- “The caseworker that I had at the time explained leaving care really well. She explained it to me 1-1 instead of having it in a big group. She also made sure that I actually understood it.”
- “… I’m at the bottom of the list to help. I’m feeling very isolated and not supported. Recently they helped me to move and broke a lot of my furniture and just said to replace it. I’ve never felt supported by my caseworkers, but even more so after I turned 18.”
Got a question for CREATE?
Contact our Advocacy and Influencing team for more information on advocacy@create.org.au
