Parliamentary Secretary announcement of the Strategic Settlement Framework
25 September 2009
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to meet with me today.
I am not here to discuss or launch the IHSS request for tender. The tender will be released soon and responses will be invited when that occurs.
Instead the purpose of this gathering is to foreshadow some of our thinking around new directions in settlement — directions that may be taken forward into a new initial settlement program, replacing the IHSS.
The promise of protection only begins with a refugee visa.
Disembarking at a crowded airport — often with no English, no understanding of the world you have entered, and no idea where you are to be taken — is both a point of desperation and an act of trust.
Leaving everything that is familiar would send fear and trepidation through most of us.
Protection should mean security and safety — it should also mean a chance to build a new life.
Refugees have remarkable resilience and a great willingness to contribute. Settlement services are our commitment to provide a means — a path — to achieve full participation and to help them begin their new life.
I have been committed to Australia’s refugee program throughout my parliamentary career. I think it is a program that defines Australian values — it is an expression of humility and compassion — it is about a fair go.
I also have a long standing commitment to the settlement sector — to organisations and dedicated individuals who have worked tirelessly to make Australia a world leader in settlement services.
It is with this commitment in mind that I undertook to consult extensively with the sector as a basis for forming the new model of settlement services.
While I could not attend every single consultation, I attended almost all. The public response was inspiring.
In total we held 17 community and government consultations and 11 focus groups with refugees.
Four hundred and sixty individuals representing 210 community organisations and more than 80 Government agencies participated and shared their views.
Most importantly we met with 195 refugees from 18 different nationalities.
As Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs, I meet regularly with refugee groups — Sudanese, Somali, Hazara, Sierra Leonean, and Burmese.
However, it is a different experience to sit and listen to their accounts of going through the services we provide.
The consultations confirmed that the fundamentals of the program — the core services — are still relevant and appropriate. In fact, these are a front on which we are an acknowledged world leader.
However, the consultations also revealed gaps and issues around isolation, lack of youth engagement, problems accessing housing, problems accessing employment and training and some weaknesses in cultural orientation.
In certain instances clients spoke of ‘tick and flick’ services – feeling as though they were not provided with enough tangible assistance or support beyond the first few weeks.
On a national level, IHSS does a good job in meeting the immediate needs of refugees — services such as airport pickups, household goods, health checks, Centrelink and school enrolment.
However, settlement is as much a mental and emotional re-alignment as it is a physical relocation.
We are less successful when it comes to creating sustainable settlement outcomes. By this, I mean working with the client to identify their strengths and providing the necessary tools to advance them along their settlement pathway.
The minister and I are looking to set out a new settlement framework — to provide a continuum from offshore to onshore to deliver long-term sustainable settlement outcomes.
This continuum covers the broad range of settlement services delivered by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship including our offshore Australian Cultural Orientation Program (AUSCO), IHSS, the Settlement Grants Program, Adult Migrant English Program, Complex Case Support and interpreting services.
We must ensure these programs work cooperatively to support our clients on their pathway to independence.
The pathway for clients between these programs needs to be as seamless as possible.
Any improvements to the programs will be consistent with the government’s social inclusion agenda.
The framework will lay the foundations for an integrated service delivery network that will support new arrivals to rebuild their lives in Australia.
At the crucial, axiomatic centre of the new settlement framework are our clients. We must not lose sight of this and must develop programs that are client-centred and achieve real and practical outcomes.
It is a matter of working with clients to build their capacity to deal with the many barriers they will face along the way, and equally it is about identifying their individual strengths and capacity to contribute.
As you are all aware, since the last tender of IHSS services, the complexity of the caseload has increased. We now receive many entrants who have lived in refugee camps for several years and children who may not have known any other life.
Many entrants have no or low literacy in their own language and no English skills. This is a result of no or interrupted education.
Equally, a significant portion have had limited opportunities for employment experience. Many arrive with health needs and have experienced torture and trauma.
So what does the future hold for settlement support?
The first step in building a new settlement framework is the redevelopment of the new model, currently known as the IHSS.
We are considering wholesale improvements in the way in which we address our clients’ immediate and longer-term settlement needs, particularly accommodation, pathways to education, training and employment and connections with other settlement and community services.
We need to be more responsive to client needs.
The way in which we deliver services to humanitarian entrants will need to change.
We need to provide entrants with greater hands-on support and guidance to navigate Australian systems, to understand Australian culture and to give them every chance to make it in Australia.
We will look at strengthening the flexible client-centred approach to case management that we currently have — working directly with clients, tapping into their strengths, building on them, and developing their capacity in other areas.
Emphasis will be placed on tailoring case management to individual needs and developing and cultivating a path to education and employment.
During a client focus group here in Brisbane one client told us that he had been a bus driver for more than 20 years in his home country of Burundi.
He said he would love to work as a bus driver but he did not know how to get a licence or how to get Australian workplace experience — experience that would mean Australian bus companies would hire him.
This story too often resonated throughout the consultations, with clients stuck in a vortex of ‘no Australian experience — no Australian jobs’.
Along with English proficiency, and participation in community life, employment is a key settlement marker. Effective case management is about working with clients to identify their path to meaningful and appropriate employment.
Part of a client-centred approach lies also in the capacity to be flexible in the intensity of support provided. We are exploring options for innovative housing solutions – including group housing and other community housing models.
For select clients initial group housing allows for services to be concentrated and structured around their needs.
Vulnerable clients will benefit from increased contact time, ongoing case management, intensive cultural orientation; group-based learning and collective support structures.
For clients who may face issues of isolation it will create opportunities to form friendships and links which are the basis of a new life.
However, group housing will not work in all places or for all clients.
For many clients, settling directly into a new community and locality and connecting to local facilities through hub-style services will deliver the best settlement outcomes.
Accommodation should be about a flexible approach based on the needs of the client.
Consultations have confirmed our views that structured onshore cultural orientation is lacking under the current program.
Resounding support was received from those clients we met for the introduction of an onshore orientation program that reinforces and builds on the messages delivered through AUSCO.
Many clients commented that the offshore cultural orientation program gave them some good basic information but they often found it difficult to contextualise and absorb.
The purpose of delivering an onshore cultural orientation program is to equip entrants with information and knowledge to assist them become lawful and participating members of our community.
Such a program will present information about Australian social and cultural norms, law and order, finance and budgeting, tenancy training, health literacy and much more.
Emphasis will be on skill development and competency-based learning rather than time-based service delivery.
With almost 70 per cent of the current intake being under 30 years of age (and this trend likely to continue), we need to ensure the needs of young people are not forgotten.
To that end there will be a stronger focus on youth — with greater consideration of the individual needs of our young refugees.
The program will provide entrants with more effective links to other settlement and community programs and stronger connections with community supports such as ethnic organisations, and recreation and social groups.
A number of clients reported to me during consultations that they were not introduced to their local ethnic community and only became acquainted by chance meetings with people from their home country in the streets or shops.
Connections with ethnic and cultural groups soon after arrival can often combat feelings of loneliness and isolation. I see this as an important function of an initial settlement program.
We listened carefully to the feedback received from current service providers around the complexity of the current pricing structure and intensive administrative management.
We will aim to simplify the cost structure of the new program and reduce costs associated with administering the contracts.
A national consultation process naturally raises many issues from clients and from organisations – issues such as consistency in the quality of household goods across contract regions or the role of volunteers. This feedback has been recorded and will assist in shaping the new model.
Conclusion
We must remember that an initial settlement program such as IHSS can only do so much.
In outlining the new directions, I am not talking about guaranteeing that on exit from this program every client will be successfully settled — because realistically speaking settlement is a lifelong process.
What we are looking at is a program built around sustainable settlement outcomes, strength based case management, competency based transitions and client focused service.
We recognise that not all refugees start from the same point and not all entrants settle at the same pace.
To this end, the new initial settlement program is client-centred, flexible and adaptable.
See:
URL: http://www.minister.immi.gov.au /parlsec/media/speeches/2009/lf090925.htm
Last update: 22 October 2009 at 10:35 AEST