APY LANDS SWIMMING POOLS

In reply to the Hon. SANDRA KANCK (10 September 2008).

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister Assisting the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Energy): The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation has provided the following information:

1. The Department of Education and Children's Services (DECS) works collaboratively with the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Education Committee (PYEC) and is responsible for the development, delivery and monitoring of preschool and school education to students living in communities on the APY Lands. Attendance at school is a Strategic Direction in both the Aboriginal Lands District Three Year Strategic Plan 2007-09 and the PYEC Plan 2007-09.

Whilst the swimming pools operate under a 'no school, no pool' policy to encourage school attendance, schools implement a range of strategies at various times to improve attendance and retention rates.

Examples of other strategies used to encourage attendance include:

Attendance prizes

Breakfast programs

Picking students up for school from home

Celebration of good attendances;

Notice board highlighting good attendances;

Seeking Community council support for poor attendances

Input of the school Governing Councils

Involvement in the sports program

Specific attendance figures for the three communities in which swimming pools have been constructed are outlined below. It should be noted that the only pool which has been open long enough to gather any meaningful data is Mimili. The Amata and Pipalyatjara pools have only completed one full summer season of opening regularly in 2007-08.

Other factors influence attendance rates including mens' business, funerals and attendance at other community or family events. Further, the broader social issues on the Lands need to be taken into account when evaluating the success of the swimming pools in influencing attendance.

2. As part of the overall Swimming Pools project on the APY, the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, through the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health has retained a consultant to conduct the following evaluation:

Conduct an evaluation of the sustainability and benefits of the swimming pools established in the APY Lands of South Australia;

Produce a report detailing the findings of the evaluation and interim reports that:

Provide an overview of the current situation in each community prior to the pools becoming operational

Evaluate findings 12 months after the swimming pools have been operational in each community

Evaluate findings 24 months after the swimming pools have been operational in each community.

The evaluation is underway with the second of the four reporting phases, based on tests conducted on the Lands in April, recently released. The phase two report suggests that the swimming pools are having a positive impact on the health of children in the communities however it is still too early to provide any conclusive data. Anecdotal reports from teachers and swimming pool staff certainly indicates a visible improvement in the skin and general health of children in the three communities during the summer season.

The third testing phase was conducted on the Lands in September however the results are not yet available.

The APY Lands evaluation has however been designed to build on previous evaluations of swimming pools in Indigenous communities as conducted in Western Australia by the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research (Lehmann et al 2003). A recent update on this research concluded that the introduction of swimming pools is associated with a reduction in skin, ear and respiratory infections. The seven year study across two Aboriginal communities in the Pilbara reported 'that of the 130 children monitored there was a 70 per cent decrease in skin infections whilst ear infections rates roughly halved after they had regular pool access'.