The government had already announced spending on out of home care services, child protection staff and child care and community centres, but disability support schemes and Indigenous employment programs also received significant investments in this year’s budget.
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The ACT Therapy Assistants in Schools program, which provides children with disabilities and developmental delays with specialised support in the classroom, will be expanded over two years thanks to a $1 million injection in this year’s budget.
Also in the sector, the government will spend nearly $500,000 to establish the Community Visitor Scheme, an informal service for resolving and referring problems faced by those with a disability.
Indigenous services in the ACT received a significant boost, with separate funding allocated for employment, business development and capacity building programs at a cost of $430,000.
After it was piloted earlier this year, the CHANCES program, Community Helping Aboriginal Australians to
Negotiate Choices Leading to Employment and Success, will be fully funded with $180,000 to assist up to 30 local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
CHANCES is an intensive three month program that targets Indigenous people at risk of long-term unemployment, reoffending or homelessness, and incorporates training, networking and work experience placements with the aim of making them job ready.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will also be encouraged to consider careers in the childcare sector, with a $100,000 program aimed at addressing the underepresentation of Indigenous children in early childhood education.
Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Dr Chris Bourke said employing Indigenous people in childcare would help reassure other Indigenous families that their children would be cared for in a welcoming environment.
‘‘[The program will] show other families that they’re having a safe time, a good time, and it’s benefits,’’ he said.
An Indigenous Business Development program to help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people start and grow their own businesses received $150,000 over four years.
More than $15 million will go to home care services, including foster and kinship care, and more than $5 million on additional child care and protection staff to work with vulnerable children.
Childcare and community centres received a $2.5million investment in upgrades.
