Cromehurst Learning Difficulties Centre

The Hon. PATRICIA FORSYTHE [5.21 p.m.]: Last Saturday the Sydney Morning Herald carried an article headed "School behaviour disorders ignored". The opening paragraph of that article stated:

Children with severe behavioural problems are going undiagnosed for "many months, sometimes years" because the system is plagued by delays and limited resources, a department of Education Review has found.

That is a Department of Education report acknowledging that many children with learning and behavioural difficulties are not having their problems diagnosed because of delays and limited resources. I mention this because two weeks ago I met with parents of children attending the Cromehurst Learning Difficulties Centre at Lindfield. That centre has been established for about 25 years and it is held in high regard by all parents whose children attend it. It conducts an intensive support program. Often, children attend the centre because they have failed in mainstream classes, or have fallen behind in their learning, or have reached a point of low self-esteem that requires specialist support.

The Cromehurst Learning Difficulties Centre, as I have said, has a 25-year history, and it works. Time and again parents have said to me that it works because their children are able to learn in a suitable environment. At the moment the centre has two classes, one of six children and one of nine children. The children remain part of their own school; they can wear the uniforms of their existing schools. But, while they attend the Cromehurst centre - which, on average, will be for about 12 months, although some students with severe learning difficulties may be there for up to two years - normally they are assimilated back into their existing classes.

Parents have told me that the stories about this centre are stories of success, of children growing in self-esteem, being able to read and write and overcoming their learning difficulties. I say that because, under this Government, the Cromehurst learning difficulties program is under threat. The district superintendent at Ryde has said that the centre will be reduced to one class next year. I would like to quote from one of the letters that have been sent to me.

One parent said that, due to recent changes to the size of education administrative areas, Cromehurst has been taken out of the Metropolitan North region, which included Hornsby district, Ryde district and the northern beaches district, and placed within the Ryde district. The result has been that the number of enrolment applications has dropped significantly. Despite this, there would obviously be enough children within the Ryde area alone requiring these services, but the Ryde office is not promoting the centre. Parents have told me that teachers in the Ryde area do not even know about the centre, and do not know of its good works, so demand is not there. That is because the Government is not promoting the centre, because it is part of the Government’s policy that ultimately the centre will be closed down.

I appeal to the Government. Indeed I have already written to the Minister on this issue on behalf of the parents. The parents are saying that the centre is a success and they want it to continue. One mother, incidentally from the Ryde area, told me that at the beginning of last term she sought to enrol
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one of her children at the centre. However, due to bureaucratic bungling and delays, she was ultimately told it was too late to apply. She persisted, and got her child admitted. I read in the newspaper of a Department of Education report about the system being "plagued by delays and limited resources" and of children not having their problems diagnosed for years. I urge the Government to review its allocation of existing resources. In conclusion, I quote an excerpt from a letter from Hornsby parents who wrote to me this week. One of those parents said:

I am a parent of four children. Two of my children have coped with the mainstream schooling quite well but I have two boys who have struggled in the mainstream while I watched their self esteem be crushed . . .

We have tried other alternative programs like the reading recovery program provided at Hornsby North school but my two boys were not successful applicants because it was felt that they were too far behind and this program was a short term program. We had worked on reading programs with our local school but this was still not enough. We had our boys tutored outside of school . . .

But, once again, that was not enough. The boys were then sent to Cromehurst. The parent continued in that letter to say:

By the time one of my boys made it to Cromehurst he would no longer pick up a pencil to even attempt to do any work, for his fear of failing was so great. It took Mrs Andrews a term of constant encouragement (which he would not have gained in a large class environment) to build confidence and by the end of the second term he was not only working independently but was getting most of his work correct.

The parent then refers to her other son, who was four years behind his friends when he went to Cromehurst, but after two years work there had almost caught up to them. He went back to his existing school. This mother said:

This year he has shined in many areas, just to mention a few:

•He was elected by his peers as the Captain of his sports team
•He is moving ahead in his maths
•His computer skills are beyond many of his peers.

I ask the Government to rethink this issue. We know from statistics gathered from across the world and in this country that 90 per cent of children who end up in the juvenile justice system have learning difficulties. Let us consider prevention programs, rather than trying to pick up the pieces afterwards. Let us not see the good work of Cromehurst destroyed by budget cuts.