Date: 4 November 2023

Time: 1 pm to 4 pm

Place: face-to-face at the CREATE Office, corner of Cooyong Street and Scotts Crossing, Canberra City

Register by: 1 November 2023

This session is for: young people aged 12 to 25 years old who are or have been involved with child protection in the ACT.

This session will cover: changes to laws so we can help young people in a better way.

Registrations for this workshop have closed.

We are changing some laws so we can help young people in a better way.

These laws are for kids aged zero to 18 years old.

One of the laws is about making sure young people like you can have their say and be listened to.

It will mean we have to ask you about choices we need to make about you and your life so we can keep you safe.

We want to know how you want us to ask you about these choices.

If you are or have been involved with child protection in the ACT, come to our workshop to tell us what you think.

What will happen on the day

At the workshop, we will ask you three main things:

• What does family mean to you and who are the important people in your life?
• What does participation mean to you and how do you want to be involved in things about your life?
• How do you like to get important information about your life?

We will also talk to you about the laws we want to make and what you think about them.

You can tell us what you think by joining in group activities with other young people, such as discussions.

We will protect your privacy

We will take some notes of what you tell us, but we will not use your name or anything else that identifies you. This means no one will know who you are when we write our report.

If you are older than 18 years, we will give you a consent form asking your permission to share your feedback.

If you are younger than 18 years, an adult needs to come with you. They will sign a form to say it's ok for us to share your thoughts.

If you need help

We know it can be hard to talk about things that have happened in your life. This will be a safe place and there will be people there to help you if it is hard.

If you don’t want to tell us something, you don’t have to. You decide what you want to tell us.

You can also get help after if you want to talk about how you are feeling. This could be with a family member, carer, your case manager or someone else you trust.

Thank you

Hearing from you about what you think is important to us.

To say thank you, we will give you a group movie pass.

Spots are limited so register now.

For this workshop, we ask an adult to come to the workshop with children younger than 18 years.

You will not be asked to participate, but to be there for extra support if the young person needs it. Tea and coffee will be provided.

We will also have people there to support the young people if they need it. We will encourage them to speak with people they trust if they need support after the workshop. This might be you, a case manager or someone else important in their life.

Consent forms will be provided on the day asking for permission to participate.

This consent form will cover use of:

• the child's de-identified words
• the child's feedback
• photos of the child's artworks.

We will ensure the protection of the child's information if we use it in future publications.

If you have thoughts to share, you can have your say on the proposed changes through the public consultation at Changing the Children and Young People Act 2008 – Stage 2.

If you or the child needs transport to the workshop, please contact us by emailing CYPAct@act.gov.au. We can organise transport for you.