New DCD office and parent support services for Kwinana

18/01/07
Families will receive greater support, children will be better protected and the entire community will benefit from the opening of a new Department for Community Development Office and the roll out of an innovative parent support service in Kwinana.
Minister for Child Protection and Communities David Templeman today officially opened the office in Parmelia House, which will provide direct, convenient access to support services for families living in the burgeoning area.
The Minister also announced that the State Government's ParentSupport service would begin operating in the Kwinana area in the first half of this year, helping parents struggling with wayward children and targeting crime and truancy.
"We acknowledge that Kwinana is an exciting, important and rapidly growing hub with its attractive lifestyle - enhanced by the extension of the southern suburbs rail link - luring more and more young families," the Minister said.
"Kwinana's current population of around 21,000 is expected to increase nearly three fold over the next four years and we need to make sure that service provision keeps up with population growth and increased demand.
"Both of these exciting initiatives show the Carpenter Government is absolutely committed to supporting families and protecting children and to making our communities safer and stronger.
"The office will be staffed by a team leader, six field workers and a Gordon Inquiry funded Youth and Family Engagement worker as well as administration staff and means families can access DCD services locally in Kwinana rather than having to travel to Rockingham."
The ParentSupport services, which are part of the Government's Responsible Parenting Initiative, are about intervening early to prevent crime and harm to children by giving support to parents.
"ParentSupport helps parents who are not coping with the anti-social behaviour of their children, such as truanting from school or engaging in vandalism such as graffiti.
"In the South Metropolitan Police District, which includes the areas to be served by this Kwinana office, there were 1,874 reported graffiti offences in 2005-06.
And in the 2006 school year, the student attendance rates in this area were below the state average.

To strengthen this service the government has introduced to the Parliament the Parental Support and Responsibility Bill 2005.
This Bill will allow for courts to issue Responsible Parenting Orders in extreme cases where parents have repeatedly failed to show a willingness to control a child who has engaged in anti-social behaviour such as truanting from school, or who poses a risk to or actually harms other children or adults or damages property.
Responsible Parenting Orders allow courts to direct parents to engage with support services, and if they fail to do so, the courts may impose fines.
In 2005 the Liberal Party supported this Bill, but in 2006 they opposed it.
"The Liberals simply do not have the courage of their convictions. They have once again proved to be soft on crime and weak on child protection. "
Minister's office - 9220 5050