Published Thursday, 19 June, 2008 at 04:52 PM

JOINT STATEMENT

Minister for Child Safety and Minister for Women
The Honourable Margaret Keech

Minister for Communities, Disability Services, ATSIP, Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
The Honourable Lindy Nelson-Carr

Roundtable forms strong partnership to address Indigenous child safety and wellbeing

Representatives at today’s Indigenous Ministerial roundtable in Cairns have committed to working in partnership to improve outcomes for children in remote Indigenous communities.

Communities Minister Lindy Nelson-Carr, Child Safety Minister Margaret Keech and the Mayors and council representatives from the discrete Indigenous communities, today agreed child protection and wellbeing had to be a priority.

Ms Nelson-Carr said action was needed by all levels of government to address the abuse and neglect of the children.

“No one said this was going to be easy,” Ms Nelson-Carr said.

“We have aimed to reach an agreement between the Queensland Government and the Mayors that focuses on all communities becoming child friendly.

“I would like to see a strong commitment for a zero tolerance approach to child abuse and neglect.

“Today we have also unanimously agreed to have more regular meetings at a high level to address some of these complex issues that affect Indigenous communities.”

The outcomes from today’s child safety and wellbeing roundtable included:

·Attracting more kinship and foster carers in Indigenous communities so children don’t have to be placed outside of the community,

·Supporting safe houses and fast-track processes to develop places where children and young people feel safe,

·Supporting more parents and families to declare their homes alcohol-free,

·Considering the formation of child protection groups to work with the Department of Child Safety in each community,

·Providing more information and education to parents on ways of keeping their children safe and healthy; and

·Allowing unrestricted access to communities by Child Safety officers.

Each of the mayors committed to providing land for Safe Houses to ensure children had somewhere to go when a safe place was needed.

The Mayors also highlighted that they wanted more input into policies affecting their communities, and that they would be equal partners in all matters affecting Indigenous people living in our respective Shires.

Aboriginal Shire Mayors reiterated the need for true recognition of the partnership and commitment to work closely with Government to address the many diverse needs of each individual community.

The Mayors also stated their commitment to ensuring the needs of their communities are addressed by a complement of local, state and federal policy solutions, which need to be developed in collaboration via a process of true consultation.

Minister Keech said statistics showed that children in Indigenous communities were more than five times more likely to be abused or neglected than children in other parts of Queensland, and were more than seven times more likely to be placed into care.

“This shows that action is needed by governments at all levels and communities so that incidences of abuse and neglect are reduced.”

Ms Keech said it was encouraging that the community leaders had expressed their own ideas on how government and councils could work together to address child safety and wellbeing.

“I asked the community leaders for a commitment to keeping their children safe, and I was heartened at their support.

“We share the goal of no child being unsafe or needing to be placed away from their communities.

“I am pleased that the mayors undertook to support the Bligh Government’s $46 million program for establishing Safe Houses in their communities and to play a role in securing suitable carers for children in need of protection.

“Children are the future of any community and protecting them is everyone’s responsibility.

Ms Nelson-Carr said the government recognised housing, economic and employment opportunities were also fundamental to keeping children safe and healthy, and were matters to be addressed at future roundtables.

“We have also committed to raising housing and economic issues with the Federal Government through COAG to ensure the needs of the communities are being addressed.”

The representatives also agreed to continue to work in collaboration and jointly chair future roundtables.

Commitments from today’s roundtable include:

Queensland and Australian Governments	Councils and Communities (mayors will work through this at a local level with their communities)
Share more information about how families can keep children safely at home	Actively promote that children deserve to be safe and to stop child abuse and neglect
Share more information about what we do and how we work	Help explain the role of departments and support departmental officers to protect children
Increase promotion to encourage people to consider being carers	Respect and foster kinship carers and their work.
Assist family members to apply to be carers	Ensure community members respect and support the restrictions that apply when a child is placed away from their family and with a carer
Work with community leaders to find suitable, safe carers for their children within the community	Work with the Commission for Young People and Child Guardian to arrange information sessions so communities can learn about blue cards
Train foster and kinship carers to be ready for the challenges they face	Encourage community members working or volunteering with children to apply for a blue card
Arrange information sessions about blue cards and how to get one. Share more information with Councils about how the blue card process works	Help community members respond if the Commission for Children and Young People and the Child Guardian advise they are considering refusing a blue card
Governments will work with councils to make homes available for carers	Councils will work with Government to make homes available for carers and support residents to declare houses dry and safe places
Help community members fill out application forms	Help carers control who lives in their houses so they can keep the children
Support safe houses and fast-track processes to develop places where children and young people feel safe. Work with councils to support and protect safe houses	Work with the departments to find land sites for new safe houses
	Encourage and respect community members who work in safe houses
	Work with government to support and protect safe houses
The Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships will work with the Office for Economical and Statistical Research, other agencies and the Australian Bureau of statistics, and the mayors’ steering committee on ways to improve access and reliability of statistics at a local level	Councils will work with government to improve local data collection and use data to inform local decision making.
Partner with the community to establish programs aimed at reducing the rates of teenage pregnancy and increasing knowledge of child birthing, breast feeding and parenting of teenagers who become pregnant.	Encourage young people to attend school and help them encourage success and develop a strong sense of self, family and community. Encourage regular attendance at antenatal care services.
Work with community to advance local health action plans	Work with government to advance local health action plans
Provide material resources that will increase the knowledge of healthy food choices in pregnancy and how best to look after yourself and your baby	Encourage young pregnant women to eat fresh and healthy food
Partner with the community to ensure that antenatal care services and childbirth education are delivered in a flexible way that encourages attendance and meets family and community expectations. Provide brief interventions to reduce smoking, alcohol and drug use in pregnancy.	Encourage regular attendance at antenatal care services to monitor health and to decrease risk factors such as smoking, alcohol and drug abuse.
Provide trained staff that can undertake child health checks, breastfeeding advice and immunization.	Encourage the family to take the baby to have regular health checks and to ensure the baby is fully immunised.
Governments will proactively support local council strategies to alleviate housing shortages, and increase economic development as local solutions to child safety and wellbeing
Work with councils and communities to assess the effectiveness and accountability of services in the community	Work with governments to assess the effectiveness and accountability of services in the community