Tweddle welcomes the Victorian Government’s budget commitment of $3.8 billion in order to fund important improvements to the mental health system that supports babies, toddlers, children and their families.
Tweddle CEO Ms Jacquie O’Brien said the commitment will be life-changing for many and followed on from important recommendations made in the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System.
“As advocates for babies, toddlers and their families, we applaud the Budget’s focus, specifically on young people in streams of care that are devoted to children up to age 11.” she said.
“This assurance to substantial ongoing investment into mental health services and infrastructure will help prevent the mental health problems of the future.”
“We would like to emphasise that the responses and reforms that attend to the mental health needs of babies, toddlers and their parents differ from those of older children. We know that babies are the least likely out of any age group in Australia to receive a mental health response.”
“Parental anxiety, stress and depression affects bonding and responsive care. Babies need a unique service response, as do parents and carers with babies.” she said.
The budget announcement coincides with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s release of a report into Child Protection in Australia 2019-20. The report includes the latest national state and territory data on child protection and family support services.
The report details that in Victoria, of the 121,739 notifications made in 2019-20, 71.8 per cent of were resolved without investigation and 33,783 investigations were finalised.
It reports that 45,686 children received child protection services in Victoria in 2019-20, with 30,420 the subject of an investigation and 16,714 were the subject of substantiations, of which 2,341 were Indigenous.
Almost 14% of the total number of substantiations were under 4 years of age.
Of children who were the subjects of substantiations, 2,007 were aged less than 1 (of which 397 were Indigenous) and 4,068 were aged 1-4 years (of which 644 were Indigenous).
73.8 per cent of children receiving child protection services were repeat clients. Of the children who were the subject of substantiations, 2,186 experienced physical abuse, 1,026 experienced sexual abuse, 12,872 experienced emotional abuse and 629 experienced neglect.
We look forward to seeing this mental health investment flow to the Child Protection system, and specifically the 0-4 year olds, and their parents and carers, outlined in the Report.
Evidence shows that one of the most effective ways to prevent the development of mental health disorders across the lifespan is to intervene in the first three years of life.
Tweddle will continue to work closely in partnership with the Government, the health sector and the family services sector to deliver mental health and early parenting support to families in the first 1000 days. We welcome the opportunity to build upon our services and our expertise to deliver the successful implementation of the final report recommendations.
