Commissioner meets with Community Affairs Committee

The Commissioner for Children and Young People and Child Guardian, Elizabeth Fraser, welcomed the opportunity to meet with the Community Affairs Committee (the Committee) in October.

The Committee held a public hearing on 26 October as part of its statutory oversight role of the Commission to monitor and review its performance and report any findings to Parliament.

The Commissioner last met formally with the Committee in July 2011 during Estimates hearings. Since then, the Commission has released a number of reports and made some important progress on key initiatives. The latest meeting represented an excellent opportunity for the Commissioner to update the Committee on the Commission’s work.

The recent report releases include the Commission’s annual report which sets out the Commission’s contribution to enhancing the lives of children and young people in Queensland, along with the Keeping Country Kids Safe final report, Reducing Youth Suicide in Queensland final report, Child Guardian Report: Child Protection System 2009–10 and Child Guardian: Consultation Report Youth Justice System. All reports can be found here.

The Committee heard that the Commission continues to advocate strongly for the rights, interests and wellbeing of children and young people in Queensland.

The Committee was also advised that the Commission’s blue card processing timeframes were returning to published benchmarks, following a challenging year in which a record number of blue cards were processed.

The Commissioner also discussed the Commission’s key priorities in the coming months, including the publishing of its annual Snapshot and child death reports, continuing to strengthen engagement of children in the development of policies and practices which impact on their lives such as bullying in schools, and finding ways to further engage stakeholders in initiatives to reduce risks and disadvantage for children through the blue card system.

The Committee was particularly interested in hearing updates on the Commission’s Community Visitor Program, blue card system, child death data and support for removing 17 year olds from adult correctional facilities.

Ms Fraser answered Questions on Notice from the Committee on topics including:

• enhancements to the Community Visitor Program’s case management system
• an update on the text messaging system available for lodging complaints
• proposed changes to the child death case review jurisdiction
• progress on the issue of children in out-of-home care transitioning from care to independence
• the Commission’s work on strategies to assist homeless children under the age of 12 and high-risk groups of children absconding from placement
• organisations’ compliance with their blue card risk management obligations
• an update on blue card processing timeframes, and
• an update on the Commission’s advocacy for the removal of 17 year olds from adult correctional facilities.

The Hansard transcript of the hearing is available here.

Last Updated: November 28, 2011

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