EMMA KING, CEO VCOSS.
INTRODUCTION
Children and young people in a “reform rich” environment
I also begin by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the land on
which we are meeting, the Wurunderjeri Peoples of the Kulin Nation. I pay my
respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other
communities who may have joined us here today.
I would also like to acknowledge the generous support of the City of Yarra in
allowing us to use the Fitzroy Town Hall today.
I would like to acknowledge and thank YACVic for all their ongoing work
around this joint work, and also to thank all those here today who contributed
to the development of the Building the Scaffolding report.
The Building the Scaffolding report highlights the importance of taking a
systemic approach to policy and services for children and young people.
We know that services cannot operate in isolation from each other. Service
coordination and collaboration needs to occur across the diverse range of
services that young people need to develop and thrive including:
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Education
Health
Housing
Transport
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Youth services
Recreation, and
Disability support services.
We also know the inherent difficulties of imposing age-based limitations on
service access as this is not reflective of an individual’s growth and
development. As Georgie noted, Building the Scaffolding emphasises the
importance of a life course approach that is sufficiently flexible to respond to
people’s needs from the early years to the middle years through to
adolescence and adulthood.
Building the Scaffolding makes a compelling case for systemic change to
better meet the needs of young people and children across the life course,
particularly emphasising the need for improved responses in the middle
years, and also for universal services such as schools to work in partnership
with local community sector organisations to better support the learning and
development of young people.
The Building the Scaffolding recommendations for system change, come at a
time when many other reviews and reform processes are identifying a similar
need for change – not just in services for children and young people but
across the entire community services system.
We have what can be described as a ‘reform rich’ environment in Victoria –
each of the reforms have as their focus achieving systemic change that will
deliver more flexible and joined-up services that can more effectively
respond to the needs of those needing support.
Reform processes currently underway include:
 The Service Sector Reform Project
 Reforms under the Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Strategy
 Reforms to the alcohol and other drugs treatment service system
 Reforms to Psychiatric Disability Rehabilitation and Support Services
(PDRSS) for people with a mental illness
 The Victorian Homelessness Action Plan System Reform Project
 Victoria’s Action Plan to Address Violence Against Women and
Children and
 The introduction of Services Connect – what has been described as the
other side of the coin to Service Sector Reform.
While this array of reform presents a challenge for service providers that need
to adapt quickly to fast changing policy, regulatory and operating
environments, it also presents a great opportunity to pursue some of the
systemic reforms identified in the Building the Scaffolding Report.
The Service Sector Reform project, which has been underway over the last
year, aims to improve how government and the community sector work
together to improve the improve outcomes for vulnerable and
disadvantaged Victorians by delivering services in more effective, efficient
and innovative ways.
The independent project lead is Professor Peter Shergold, and the project
partners have been the Department of Human Services, VCOSS, and the
Office for the Community Sector.
Professor Shergold released his interim consultation feedback report, in May
and this is available on the VCOSS website. Two weeks ago, Professor
Shergold presented the key recommendations and principles from his final
paper to the VCOSS CEO and Presidents Forum – the VCOSS tweets from this
are available on the VCOSS website. We are now looking forward to the
release of Professor Shergold’s final report next week.
Professor Shergold outlined last week that transformative change – structural
and cultural, is required across both government and community sector
organisations to develop genuine collaborative approaches.
He noted that his recommendations include the need for local area
governance models that enable improved local area service design and
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planning, to facilitate greater flexibility in delivery to respond more effectively
to the needs of individuals, families and communities.
Prof Shergold also highlighted the importance of a cross-government
outcomes framework to establish metrics against which impacts can be
accountable, and emphasised that it should be developed in partnership
between the government and community sector organisations.
The importance of reviewing regulatory arrangements was also highlighted,
that the principle should be ‘report once’ and for accountability to
emphasise achievement of outcomes not completing required processes –
so that space is created for further service innovation not to develop ‘workarounds’.
VCOSS is strongly emphasising the importance of a partnership approach to
the implementation of any reforms, and so welcomed Professor Shergold’s
recommendation for a Partnership Advisory Committee to drive the required
culture of inter- and cross government and cross sector collaboration.
VCOSS will continue working with the Victorian Government and our
members to ensure that the recommendations of the Building the Scaffolding
report are heard to ensure they inform the shape of reforms to benefit young
people.
I know we have got a great line up of speakers today. I am looking forward
to hearing their perspectives on some of the options for reforming services for
children and young people that will deliver better outcomes for them into the
future.
As Georgie noted, we are focusing on three areas of the report today:
 Local governance models
 The middle years, and
 Outcomes
Today is just one step in an ongoing discussion. We are not going to solve all
the issues today but we are hoping this forum will assist us to better identify
where VCOSS and YACVic need to be focusing our advocacy efforts to help
create some positive changes for children and young people.
I will now hand over to Jen Rose, Manager of Policy and Projects at YACVic
to lead us into the first session.
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