Transcript Homelessness

Participation for All:
Curriculum Corporation Conference
Tony Keenan
Chief Executive Officer
Hanover Welfare Services
Inclusion is Central to Productivity
• Demand for skilled labour will continue even
with economic downturn
• A significant decline in the growth of the
workforce to 2035
• Substantial human costs and entrenched
generational disadvantage
• Substantial financial costs to criminal justice,
health, social security, housing etc
Changes in Policy and thinking
about Disadvantage
• Move away from passive welfare/support
measures to more interventionist inclusion
based approaches
• A move away from “throughput” models of
service delivery to outcome based
approaches
• Greater emphasis on “joined up’ service
delivery and programs
• Evidence based approaches and solutions
Homelessness
• 2006 Census - 105,000 Australians were
homeless, a 5% increase since 2001
• An increase of 17% in families since 2001
Census
• Largest client group of homeless support
agencies are accompanied children (56,800)
• 20% of these children are ATSI
• 2001 - 12,230 secondary students were
“unaccompanied” homeless
• Good news –2006 Census reported a 21%
decline in unaccompanied homeless youth
(12- 18).
Our Inclusion Record for Students
Experiencing Homelessness
• Which Way Home, the Green Paper on Homelessness
highlights appalling failure of programs in this regard.
• in 2005-06, 35 per cent of SAAP (Supported
Accommodation and Assistance Program) - clients aged
between five and seventeen were in education before
entering SAAP
• Following the period of SAAP support this figure actually
dropped slightly to 34 per cent.
• Contact with SAAP did not increase school attendance for
students who were already not attending school. In 2005–
06, 57 per cent of young people aged under 17 years of
age were not in education before entering SAAP, and 56
per cent were not in education after SAAP support.
Our Inclusion Record for Students
Experiencing Homelessness
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Rates of early school leaving is much higher
12 to 13 - 17.6% not in school
14 to 15 - 39.4% not in school
15 to 16 - 50% not in school
AIHW reports that within 12 months of becoming
homeless, two thirds of young people leave school,
and once having left school, find it harder to complete
their education
• Early school leaving is not only an indicator of
educational disengagement, but it also has longerterm effects such as lower wages and financial
insecurity, a greater likelihood of unemployment and
poorer mental and physical health
How does this happen?
• Fragmentation and lack of coordination of programs
including school, family violence, welfare, housing
and support
• Lack of affordable housing
• While fantastic examples of local programs/protocols
no policies/programs have been developed at state
or commonwealth levels to encourage coordination
• Different professional paradigms
• “Joining up” massive bureaucracies of health, human
services, education, social security etc.
• Little research/evidence into the actual professional
practice of effectively working with disadvantage
Inclusion Targets and Outcomes
• Will be the key policy drivers
• Need to work across program areas
• A reduction in the numbers of Australians
experiencing homelessness of X % by Y year
• An improvement in school readiness of
children from families experiencing
homelessness and a reduction in delayed
school entry for children in families
experiencing homelessness
Inclusion Targets and Outcomes
• A positive improvement in the Australian Early
Development Index (AEDI) for the 20 collection
areas with the highest number of child clients
receiving homelessness support services.
• An increase in child clients of homelessness
services attending four year old kindergarten
• An improvement over time in the performance of
child clients of homelessness services in Year
3,5,7 & 9 Literacy and Numeracy tests
• An increase in the number of young clients of
homelessness services who complete Year 12 or
equivalent