Family and Community Services and Centrelink

FAMILY AND COMMUNITY SERVICES AND CENTRELINK

Supporting families at a local level

The Australian Government is fully committed to supporting families at a local level. The renewed Stronger Families and Communities Strategy announced on 7 April 2004, has funded a range of community-based projects. The Australian Government has committed $490 million over five years (2004-2009) to continue and expand the Australian Government’s commitment to early childhood initiatives which will include strategies for Communities for Children, Early Childhood — Invest to Grow, Local Answers, and Choice and Flexibility in Child Care.

Family Assistance — Stronger Families and Communities Strategy

The renewed Stronger Families and Communities Strategy focuses on early childhood (0-5 years) through early intervention, prevention and capacity building initiatives which support and strengthen Australian families and communities by working with them to identify solutions to their local issues. The renewed Strategy comprises four main components:

Communities for Children

Communities for Children provides funding of $142.4 million over five years (2004-09) to 45 disadvantaged communities across Australia to address the needs of young children and families. Funding of up to $4 million per community is being provided to local non-government organisations that will be engaged to work with local stakeholders to deliver early childhood development programmes and services.

Early Childhood — Invest to Grow

Early Childhood — Invest to Grow provides funding of $70.5 million over four years (2004-2008) to expand established and developing early intervention and prevention programmes to a greater number of locations. Funding will also support the development of resources or tools for parents, community groups, professionals and government organisations to support positive early childhood development. Early Childhood — Invest to Grow continues to position Australia as one of the world leaders in best practice in early childhood development.

Local Answers

Local Answers complements other initiatives of the Strategy by providing funding of $151.6 million over five years (2004-2009) to local community organisations including those in rural and regional areas. Funding is available for local, small-scale, time-limited projects that help communities build skills and capacity, identify opportunities and take action for the benefit of their members in partnership with community organisations, business and local government. Local Answers funds a diverse range of projects including parenting and relationship skills, community strengthening and participation for young parents, volunteering, mentoring and leadership.

The Local Answers funding includes $14.6 million over five years (2004-2009) for Volunteer Small Equipment Grants of up to $3,000, which is available to local community organisations for the purchase of equipment.

Choice and Flexibility in Child Care

Choice and Flexibility in Child Care provides funding of $125.3 million over four years (2004-2008) to continue the groundbreaking work of the first Strategy. It provides Australian parents with flexible and innovative child care solutions by funding the expansion of the In-Home Care programme. In-Home Care is a flexible form of child care where care is provided in the child’s home by an approved carer. It is available to families that have no other formal child care options including:

Families in rural and remote Australia.
Families working non-standard hours such as police, firefighters, ambulance, nurses, doctors and security personnel.
Families with multiple children under school age.
Families where either the parent or child has a chronic or terminal illness.

Choice and Flexibility in Child Care also funds the Long Day Care Incentive Scheme which provides incentives for long day care providers to set up more long-day care centres in rural and urban fringe areas of identified high unmet demand.

Family Assistance — Playgroups

The Australian Government is contributing approximately $19 million over four years (2004-2008) to resource and expand playgroup programmes across the country.

There are three types of Playgroup Programmes:

Mainstream Playgroups — are self-managed by the parents/carers who use these playgroups.
Supported Playgroups — are those assisted by a facilitator and target linguistically and culturally diverse families, Indigenous families, families with mental health issues, and teenage-parent families.
Intensive Support Playgroups — target particularly disadvantaged families and children at risk. The focus is community development, offering a wide range of services to support families with children. A facilitator, social worker or other support worker provides extensive support to these playgroups.

The additional funding provides for the establishment of 4000 new mainstream playgroups, as well as around 200 supported, and eight Intensive Support Playgroups over the next three years (2004-2007).

Family Assistance — Responding Early Assisting Children (REACh)

REACh funds services that provide early intervention support for children and families at risk of child abuse and neglect. The programme has a focus on prevention, developing resilience in families and children, and promoting successful transitions for children in vulnerable families. The programme funds child centred, family focussed and community connected programmes such as parenting education, home visits by counsellors, family support, playgroups, mentoring and community development. REACh is partly funded from both the Child Abuse Prevention appropriation and the Services for Families with Children appropriation.

Reconnect Programme

Reconnect is a youth homelessness early intervention programme, which began operating in December 1999. The Reconnect Programme is almost fully implemented and as at March 2005, 96 Reconnect services have been funded nationwide. Approximately 40 per cent of funding (around $8 million each year) is being directed to regional, rural and remote communities, including 14 Indigenous communities.

Services are located in communities of high need, which were identified by state and territory governments. The objective of the programme is to reconnect young people, aged 12-18, with family, education, training, employment and their community. The Reconnect Programme has been funded for a total of $82.1 million over four years from 2003–04.

Family assistance — increased funding for the Child Care Support Programme

The Australian Government will provide additional funding of $16.3 million over four years from 2004–05 to enhance services provided through the Child Care Support Programme (previously known as the Broadband). The funding will target two areas:

Establishment and sustainability of child care services in high need rural, regional and Indigenous communities.
Inclusion of children with additional needs into quality child care.

The measure will assist families and children by addressing gaps in child care provision identified through the review of the previous Child Care Support Broadband. The measure will increase access to quality child care for families including children with additional needs and those in rural and remote Australia.

Jobs, Education and Training Programme Child Care

Jobs, Education and Training (JET) Child Care helps people who receive certain Centrelink payments, including Parenting Payment, to enter or re-enter the workforce. JET Child Care assists parents to access child care places to enable them to participate in education, training and employment. Assistance can also be provided for the cost of child care for some families, which further reduces barriers to participating in approved activities. In more remote regions and in other areas where formal child care is not available, crèches have been established to care for children so that eligible parents can participate in education, training and employment opportunities. In 2005-06 JET Child Care will provide more than $15.7 million to assist low income parents who undertake training and education with affordable child care.

Long Day Care Incentive Scheme

The Long Day Care Incentive Scheme is a $12.8 million (over four years to 2007-08) programme designed to encourage the establishment of viable long day care centres in areas of high, unmet demand. Short term incentive funding ensures service provider viability while they build their client base and utilisation rates to sustainable levels.

The target is the creation of at least 25 new long day care centres offering at least 1000 places. Community and private providers are able to apply for assistance to establish new long day care centres in rural, remote and urban fringe areas of high, unmet demand for child care.

In-Home Care

In-Home Care is a flexible form of child care where an approved carer provides care in the child’s home. It may be available for families who do not have access to an existing child care service, or where an existing service cannot meet their needs. Families eligible for in-home care include families where the parent/s or child has an illness/disability, families in rural or remote areas and parents working shift work or non‑standard hours or for families with multiple births (more than two).

Disadvantaged Area Subsidy

Disadvantaged Area Subsidy is paid to community-based child care services operating in rural and regional areas where lower demand and utilisation rates may mean services are not always commercially viable. Disadvantaged Area Subsidy payments will cease on 30 June 2005.

From 1 July 2005 Sustainability Assistance will be introduced. This payment is better targeted and will benefit services in greatest need. Small services in areas of need (often rural and remote) will attract greater support than large services so that families in these areas will continue to have access to child care.

Auslan Interpreting Services — enhanced access

The Australian Government has provided $18.4 million over four years (from 2004-05) to establish a national booking service to provide accredited Auslan interpreters free of charge to deaf people attending specified private medical and health consultations. The booking service will have a positive impact on deaf Auslan people nationally (estimated to be 6,500 people), including deaf people living in regional Australia.

Carers — Increased access to respite care

The Australian Government has committed $72.5 million over four years (from 2004-05) to provide increased respite for ageing parents who care for a son or daughter with a disability. Under this measure parents over 70 years of age who care for a son or daughter with a disability will be eligible for up to four weeks respite each year, while parents aged 65 to 69 who care for a son or daughter with a disability and themselves need to spend time in hospital, will be eligible for up to two weeks respite each year. This funding is contingent on state and territory governments matching the offer. The Australian Government believes that parents who have provided a lifetime of care for their sons or daughters with a disability deserve recognition and need appropriate support to continue their caring role.

Carers — Young carer respite and information services

Under this measure, the Australian Government will provide young carers at risk of prematurely leaving school, or the vocational equivalent, with additional respite, support and information services. Young carers will gain access for up to five hours in-home respite per week during the school term and will also have access to one fortnight of respite care each year to undertake activities such as studying for exams, training or recreation. In addition, young carers will be able to access age-appropriate information, advice and referral services including a telephone hotline, on-line advice and an information package.

The measure will cost $26.6 million over four years (from 2004-05), and will be implemented in 2005.

Supported Accommodation Assistance Programme

The Supported Accommodation Assistance Programme is a jointly funded programme between the Australian and state and territory governments, providing crisis accommodation and support to those who are homeless or are at risk of homelessness. The Australian Government is expected to provide around $931 million for the SAAP V Agreement from 2005‑06 to 2009-10. States and territories will also make a commitment to SAAP V. SAAP services operate throughout Australia, with around 40 per cent located in regional Australia.

Transition to Independent Living Allowance

The Transition to Independent Living Allowance (TILA) helps young people between 15 and 25 years to make the transition from care to independent living. TILA was announced in the 2001‑02 Budget and implementation began in 2003. TILA is administered through non-government organisations in each state and territory to assist young people who are exiting care, who as a group, are at high risk of disengaging from education, employment and/or the community. Up to $1,000 in goods or services can be accessed on behalf of these young people.

The Australian Government has expanded the eligibility criteria to now include young people who are exiting juvenile justice, Indigenous kinship care or out of home care and are moving to independent living. This expansion will further the take-up of TILA, which helps young people leaving care to achieve stability and improved participation in community and economic life. The Australian Government has provided funding of $10.6 million over four years from 2005‑06, including $2.6 million in 2005‑06.

Mentor Marketplace Programme

The Australian Government will provide $12 million over four years from 1 July 2005 to fund up to twelve existing Mentor Marketplace projects and fifteen new projects from 1 January 2006.

Several of the current projects are located in regional and remote areas such as Wiluna in WA; Alice Springs in the Northern Territory; Dubbo and Deniliquin in NSW; and Cairns and Tewantin in Queensland.

Continuing the Mentor Marketplace Programme will provide further mentoring opportunities for a wide range of young people including: Indigenous young people; those from disadvantaged groups and localities; those in foster care; young carers and young people with disabilities.

Women's Safety Agenda

The Women’s Safety Agenda delivers on the Australian Government’s election commitment to eliminate domestic violence and sexual assault. It reflects recent research and evidence that there are strong policy grounds to continue the Australian Government’s agenda in this area.

The Australian Government will provide $75.7 million in the 2005-06 Budget over four years for the Women’s Safety Agenda to address four broad themes — prevention, health, justice and services. Together they aim to reduce the incidence and decrease the impact of domestic violence and sexual assault upon the community by building on the achievements of previous initiatives. A specific element of the initiative is training for nurses in regional and rural areas. Women in rural and regional communities are often afraid to come forward for fear of being identified. The Australian Government will provide funding to train practice nurses in regional and rural areas to assist them to identify and respond to domestic violence. Doctors will also receive assistance to release the nurses for this training. This will give people in regional areas access to a personal, confidential referral service.

Centrelink services to regional Australia

Centrelink continues to tailor its services to the particular needs of small rural and regional communities through its Customer Service Centres, Call Centres (including two dedicated Rural Call Centres in Port Augusta-South Australia and Maryborough — Queensland) and the Agent network.

In addition to these traditional channels, Centrelink now offers a range of self service options via telephone and Internet that allows many customers to undertake Centrelink business at a time and place that suits them. All Centrelink Agents offer access and assistance for customers to utilise Centrelink Self Services.

Centrelink currently has:

More than 321 Customer Service Centres across Australia, of which 185 are located in or are responsible for delivering a service to rural and regional Australia.
27 call centres (including the two dedicated Rural Call Centres).
A network of over 520 community — based Agents and Access Points who provide a daily contact and information service on Centrelink’s behalf (161 of these are specifically targeted at assisting Indigenous customers).
A range of visiting services to small rural towns, as well as remote visiting teams servicing isolated Indigenous communities.
A farmers’ 1800 number to handle enquiries from farmers on initiatives targeted at primary producers (excluding drought).
A 13 number which provides assistance to farmers on drought related initiatives and access to personal support and counselling services to members of drought affected communities.
A service in approximately 87 of the Rural Transaction Centres opened to date with a further 13 pending establishment.

Centrelink has a nationwide network of Farm Help Contact Officers who work closely with farming families facing financial difficulties. There are approximately 50 specialist officers actively involved in servicing rural communities through their ongoing outreach work, such as seminars for farmers and close liaison with the financial and agriculture sectors.

Centrelink has also established relationships with the Australian, state and local governments and the private sector to improve access to Centrelink services for rural customers. These relationships have been strengthened and broadened as Centrelink continues to work closely with a wide range of service providers in assisting rural and regional Australians manage the impacts of the drought.

Centrelink continues to operate its Rural Call Centres in Maryborough — Queensland and Port Augusta — South Australia. These rural-specific call centres provide access to services to rural Australia regardless of distance, isolation and other disadvantages. The centres form part of the Australian Government’s whole‑of‑government approach to meeting the needs of rural and regional Australia, particularly in assisting rural communities access drought support programmes and services.

Concessions on Great Southern rail services

The Australian Government will make available $30.2 million over four years to continue the reimbursement of concessional fares on Great Southern Rail services. The measure enables the provision of concessions for pensioners, certain veterans and Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holders travelling on the Indian Pacific, the Ghan and the Overland rail services.