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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-09-22 Daily Xml
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ICAN PROGRAM

Mrs GERAGHTY (Torrens) (15:20): My question is to the Minister for Education. What initiatives are being taken to expand the successful ICAN program to further support young people at risk of dropping out of school?

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH (Adelaide—Minister for Education, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (15:20): I thank the member for Torrens for her question and acknowledge her advocacy for young people and her recognition of the need to keep them engaged in schooling, education and training while making sure that there is flexibility within their education. I believe that she was probably the first person to point out the need for flexibility in relation to the twilight schooling system that was available in her local high school as a way of engaging those disaffected youth who would previously have dropped out of schooling.

The Innovative Community Action Networks were one of the products of the Social Inclusion Board, and for that we should not only commend the Premier for designing the Social Inclusion Initiative but also recognise the previous minister, the member for Taylor, who showed leadership in developing these programs some five years ago.

As the member for Torrens said, these programs have been extraordinarily successful. They are an approach whereby young people are connected with community leaders, local government, business, entrepreneurs, health sector employees and specialist non-government and government agencies in order to find ways to tailor individually programs that will re-engage them. We know that, if young people drop out of work, out of schooling and out of training, they are at risk of not only disengagement from school but also juvenile justice entanglement, mental health disease, low housing outcomes and poor income and employment.

To date, the ICAN strategy has been extraordinarily successful. In 2008, nearly 1,400 young people were engaged in an ICAN program in South Australia and 80 per cent are re-engaged this year. This is a phenomenal outcome when you consider that those young people would otherwise have been disengaged and unemployed and likely to have a whole range of mishaps and unfortunate experiences in the future.

The responsibility the ICANs share is in recognising that not just schools but also the community are responsible for young peoples' outcomes, and I acknowledge those community leaders in the northern, southern and north-western metropolitan areas, as well as those in the Spencer Gulf towns of Port Pirie, Port Augusta and Whyalla, where programs have been innovative and the subject of serious research and assessment that has really highlighted the fact that they were highly successful.

Having been run for some five years, we knew how well these programs worked, and we were able to promote them to the federal government. I am delighted that $30 million will be used to expand them across the state so that, as of this year, we will begin to develop programs in the outer southern metropolitan suburbs, from the Fleurieu down to Kangaroo Island, as well as in the Riverland, the Murraylands and Yorke Peninsula. Next year and into 2011, communities on Eyre Peninsula and in the Lower South-East are expected to be involved, with communities in the Barossa, the Mid North, the Upper South-East, the Adelaide Hills and the eastern metropolitan areas all coming on board.

Our goal is that, by 2013, 8,000 young people will be involved in these programs each year. If we can maintain our 80 per cent success rate, this will have a substantial impact on not only the lives of those young people, in making sure that they reach their potential, but also our capacity to provide skills into the future and employability options for those young people.

I think this is a great project, a great example of community involvement and a tribute to the Social Inclusion Board, the previous minister and Monsignor Cappo. To have 8,000 young people involved in these programs by 2013 will be a fabulous outcome, and I commend to the house and congratulate all those people who have been involved in setting this up and working so hard for South Australia to make this work.

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