CREATE’s monthly Advocacy Wrap Ups provide regular updates on our latest advocacy for improving the lives of children and young people with an out-of-home care experience.
Our Wrap Ups include:
- CREATE’s latest submissions on issues including youth justice, residential care, housing and more.
- Media releases and statements about current issues affecting children and young people in care.
- Relevant news and research in the sector so you can catch up on what has happened over the last month.
- A monthly advocacy focus. This month it’s our Stakeholder Pulse Check.
- Consultation opportunities for children and young people to ensure that their lived experiences and voices are heard in decision-making about the out-of-home care system in Australia.
August advocacy focus
Stakeholder Pulse Check
As CREATE reaches the halfway point of our 5-year Strategic Plan, we want to hear your feedback through a brief survey. The Stakeholder Pulse Check is a quick, 4-question survey designed to gather your insights on how you think CREATE is tracking as the national peak body representing the voices of children and young people with a care experience.
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Survey closes at 9am on Thursday, 12 September.
News
Latest research and reports
‘Help way earlier!’ – transforming child justice report
The treatment of children in the criminal justice system, some as young as 10 years old, is one of the most urgent human rights issues facing Australia today.
Children and young people in this report spoke about what is needed to prevent children’s contact with the child justice system. Their insights confirm that crime committed by children is a symptom of children’s needs not being met.
News
Coming this October: South Australia’s first-ever Leaving Care Expo.
Hosted by CREATE Foundation in partnership with Key Assets, the Leaving Care Expo is for young people with a care experience aged 15-25 to give them tools and information to help with the transition from out-of-home care to independence.
Opportunities
Submissions
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CREATE provided feedback to the South Australian Royal Commission in Domestic Family and Sexual Violence. In line with our mission and guided by the voices of young people, our submission focused on the needs of children and young people with an out-of-home care experience in South Australia. CREATE advocated for the inclusion of children and young people with a care experience as a priority cohort within this strategy.
CREATE strongly recommended that the Royal Commission investigated the experiences of domestic, family and sexual violence involving children and young people living in out-of-home care across South Australia, to gain insight from their experiences and to contribute to a knowledge-base focused on prevention, early intervention, response, recovery and healing.
CREATE strongly recommended that the Royal Commission investigated targeted prevention and early interventions strengthened by trauma-informed and culturally responsive support responses that are specifically designed for children and young people with an out-of-home care experience.
News
CREATE is pleased with this step forward following the special inquiry by the Advocate for Children and Young People which revealed negative experiences in ACAs, including young people feeling unsafe, being mistreated and experiencing abuse.
CREATE advocates for care models that promote therapeutic, trauma-informed, relational and holistic responses to children and young people, coupled with increased investment in early intervention, family preservation and reunification programs.
News
CREATE has released our ACT election priorities. Check them out.
Latest research and reports
Submissions
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CREATE provided feedback to the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Truth and Justice Commission Bill 2024; a Bill for an Act to establish a Commission of Inquiry into historic and ongoing injustices against First Nations peoples in Australia.
CREATE’s submission focused on what we have heard from young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, with experience of the out-of-home care system across Australia, in relation to their experiences into the ongoing injustices against Aboriginal children and young people across Australia. Our submission elevated their voices and sought to bring a deliberate focus on Aboriginal children and young people and their experiences of injustice, including across the domains of culture, connection to their kin and Country.
CREATE specifically recommended that membership to the Truth and Justice Commission be expanded to include members that had experience of the Child Protection system to drive government system reform through outcomes that uphold the rights and interests of Aboriginal children and young people with a care experience.
Further to this, CREATE recommended the establishment of a National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children for a national oversight of Aboriginal children and young people living in out-of-home care. CREATE also recommended that the established Commission inquire into and provide recommendations to Parliament for the urgent reforms on accountability, cultural competence and compliance for both cultural and human rights for Aboriginal children and young people with a care experience.
News
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CREATE welcomes the funding boost announcement from the Victorian Government of $2.3 million allocated to support Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations to advance Aboriginal self-determination in the children and families service system. We are pleased to hear that the Victorian Aboriginal Children and Young People’s Alliance will be funded to develop a new residential care model, based on the Palm Island model which focuses on connection to community and family. While CREATE believes that intensive early intervention is one of the best tools to reduce the number of children and young people entering care (including residential care), we know from what young people have told us about their experiences in residential care that improvements need to be made to ensure a safe and stable environment:
“… I would like to be more connected with my culture. I don’t know what that looks like though.” (Young Aboriginal person, Vic)
We also welcome the news that Gunditjmara Aboriginal Cooperative will receive funding to deliver cultural education sessions in primary schools across western Melbourne and Victoria, enabling children to retain their sense of identity. Young Aboriginal people with a care experience continue to voice their desire to exercise their right to connection to culture, Country and community. They call for systems and services that listen to their needs and their words:
“Listen to us about how we are feeling and how we want to change something or see something. Just listen and sit there.” (Young Aboriginal person, Vic)
CREATE sees these programs as critical to ensuring Aboriginal children and young people with a care experience are appropriately supported to be safe and well. This funding commitment from the Victorian Government is a welcomed step forward to better meet their needs and address their calls for culturally rich and self-determined support services.
The Victorian Government walks back its commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14.
Raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 is a key first step to broader systemic change to move the youth justice system to become more child and needs focused. This would also be in line with calls from the Australian Human Rights Commission (2021) and Committee on the Rights of the Child (2019).
Submissions
News
New youth justice panel appointed in Tasmania!
CREATE supports Acting Commissioner Crompton’s calls to honour children’s voices in shaping policy.
Children and young people are experts by experience and deserve for their voices to be heard.
Subscribe to our enews below to be the first to know when our monthly Advocacy Wrap Ups are published! Please share our Wrap Ups with your colleagues and if you work with children and young people with a care experience, be sure to flag with them any current consultation opportunities so they can have their say.
Thank you for reading our Advocacy Wrap Up. To provide feedback, please email marketing@create.org.au
