❓ The Minister for Child Protection provides an update on the McGowan Labor government's progress in implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, highlighting legislative changes, cross-agency collaboration, and investment in trauma-informed training and research.
AnsweredQoN 187Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
ROYAL COMMISSION INTO
INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES TO CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
187. Ms J.L. HANNS to the Minister for Child Protection:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's commitment to supporting vulnerable children by
implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional
Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Can the minister update the house on the work
underway by the state government in responding to sexual abuse, including how
it is supporting the workforce to better understand childhood trauma?
INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES TO CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
187. Ms J.L. HANNS to the Minister for Child Protection:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's commitment to supporting vulnerable children by
implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional
Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Can the minister update the house on the work
underway by the state government in responding to sexual abuse, including how
it is supporting the workforce to better understand childhood trauma?
AnswerView source ↗
I
am very pleased to have an opportunity to speak about this again. Members would
have heard a fairly lengthy second reading speech today about amendments
to the Children and Community Services Act, including implementing a number of recommendations of the Royal
Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse relating to mandatory reporting. Once that bill is passed, a range of occupations will
be required by law to mandatorily report if
they form a belief that a child has been sexually abused. That is significant.
There are 310 recommendations of the
royal commission that apply to the Western Australian government. We have
committed to implement all of those, and we are making good progress on
implementing them. People might also be aware that we give an annual report so
that members of the house and the public can see how we are going.
One of the complex pieces of work
across government is looking at how we can deal across agencies. It is not just specialist child protection workers who need
to understand how we implement this work, because child safety comes before the police, justice, the courts, health and
education, as well as local governments and community organisations ,
like arts or sporting organisations. All those different parts of our society
need to understand what child safety means for them.
Research estimates that one in four
Australian children will experience abuse or neglect by the age of 10 years. The effects of abuse and neglect on a developing
child are well documented. It can have quite significant long-term effects on those individuals and lead to lifelong disadvantage. Last year, I was
pleased to present a $3 million Lotterywest grant to support the establishment
of the Pursuit of Excellence in Responding to Child Abuse and Neglect in Western
Australia centre. This is a hugely significant centre for Western Australia. It
is an innovation partnership between Parkerville Children and Youth Care and
the Australian Centre for Child Protection, which is based at the University of
South Australia. It will bring together clinical and research specialists from
across Australia. One of its first pieces of work will be to look at making
sure that we better understand trauma-related behaviours
presenting in our schools or our justice systems, which have for far too long
failed to see the origins of that behaviour. One of the recommendations
of the royal commission is that we better understand how trauma presents so
that all the different parts of either the public sector or the different
organisations, as I said before, understand what that means. In fact, one of
the royal commissioners, Helen Milroy, said —
Developing an understanding of what
drives behaviour, rather than labelling the behaviour itself, is a common
problem we face when working with young people.
The
WA centre has had 300 people go through a training module to identify and
understand childhood trauma. In fact, that training will articulate to a university
degree qualification. Sixty of those people will then be able to articulate
those modules to a higher education qualification. I am pleased that we were
able to announce another $2 million to extend the operations of the WA centre
to better understand how we respond to harmful sexual behaviours, which is a prevalent
but little understood phenomenon that the royal commission noted. This is
really important work to better understand the effects of trauma and abuse,
responses to it and hopefully how we can work to prevent it as well.
am very pleased to have an opportunity to speak about this again. Members would
have heard a fairly lengthy second reading speech today about amendments
to the Children and Community Services Act, including implementing a number of recommendations of the Royal
Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse relating to mandatory reporting. Once that bill is passed, a range of occupations will
be required by law to mandatorily report if
they form a belief that a child has been sexually abused. That is significant.
There are 310 recommendations of the
royal commission that apply to the Western Australian government. We have
committed to implement all of those, and we are making good progress on
implementing them. People might also be aware that we give an annual report so
that members of the house and the public can see how we are going.
One of the complex pieces of work
across government is looking at how we can deal across agencies. It is not just specialist child protection workers who need
to understand how we implement this work, because child safety comes before the police, justice, the courts, health and
education, as well as local governments and community organisations ,
like arts or sporting organisations. All those different parts of our society
need to understand what child safety means for them.
Research estimates that one in four
Australian children will experience abuse or neglect by the age of 10 years. The effects of abuse and neglect on a developing
child are well documented. It can have quite significant long-term effects on those individuals and lead to lifelong disadvantage. Last year, I was
pleased to present a $3 million Lotterywest grant to support the establishment
of the Pursuit of Excellence in Responding to Child Abuse and Neglect in Western
Australia centre. This is a hugely significant centre for Western Australia. It
is an innovation partnership between Parkerville Children and Youth Care and
the Australian Centre for Child Protection, which is based at the University of
South Australia. It will bring together clinical and research specialists from
across Australia. One of its first pieces of work will be to look at making
sure that we better understand trauma-related behaviours
presenting in our schools or our justice systems, which have for far too long
failed to see the origins of that behaviour. One of the recommendations
of the royal commission is that we better understand how trauma presents so
that all the different parts of either the public sector or the different
organisations, as I said before, understand what that means. In fact, one of
the royal commissioners, Helen Milroy, said —
Developing an understanding of what
drives behaviour, rather than labelling the behaviour itself, is a common
problem we face when working with young people.
The
WA centre has had 300 people go through a training module to identify and
understand childhood trauma. In fact, that training will articulate to a university
degree qualification. Sixty of those people will then be able to articulate
those modules to a higher education qualification. I am pleased that we were
able to announce another $2 million to extend the operations of the WA centre
to better understand how we respond to harmful sexual behaviours, which is a prevalent
but little understood phenomenon that the royal commission noted. This is
really important work to better understand the effects of trauma and abuse,
responses to it and hopefully how we can work to prevent it as well.
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