Source Document:

Hansard committee on EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE

Hearing Date:

20 OCTOBER 2011

Summary:

Was the child and their family punished for their disinterest in school? Yes. Did they at last see the benefit of, and start enjoying school? No.

When you have to resort to threats of starvation to keep kids in class, it doesn’t make for a happy, academic atmosphere, does it?

Interesting bit on page 8

Centrelink has to talk to the education authority and say: ‘Is the parent taking any reasonable steps? What has happened over the last 28 days? Have they come and spoken to you? Have they responded to a request for a meeting? Have you had some engagement with the parents?’ If the school says they have not been taking reasonable steps then Centrelink makes a determination on that family. It is only at that stage that Centrelink is able to say to the family, ‘Your income support will be suspended

Interesting bit on page 11

One of the things that SEAM tries to achieve is the creation of a habit. ‘Can SEAM achieve the creation of a habit of attendance?’ is probably a more appropriate question to ask in terms of what SEAM is capable of doing. That is what we would hope that SEAM could achieve but, as I say, there are mixed results. It is not a measure that can easily achieve that, because you do get a small spike in attendance. The issue is: how sustainable is it? What we have found is that where the attendance does increase after an intervention, if a social worker is engaged with that family the attendance will stay up a bit higher for a bit longer.