Push for more culturally appropriate support systems for young offenders

ABC NEWS (Australia)

There are many support systems in place for young Australians who fall foul of the law. But youth justice workers say these structures would be more effective and engaging if they were culturally appropriate helping to reduce re-offending rates in the process.

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00:00 For Sa, helping young people is a passion that comes from experience.

00:06 I had an environment where parents were divorced and etc came from a refugee background.

00:11 So being a young youth I was looking up to people to gain validation or to gain some

00:20 experience about life.

00:22 The now 22 year old says he got caught up in crime in his early teens and spent time

00:27 in a youth detention centre.

00:29 I found myself in the wrong group at a young age.

00:33 Found myself within bad situations, situations I don't want to see myself in even to this

00:40 day.

00:41 Mr Ellie realised he needed counselling to break the cycle, but he was shocked at what

00:45 he found.

00:46 Going into counselling there's not too many African people there so then again you feel

00:52 weird out, you're like yo I'm being counselled by not people that understand my culture and

00:57 what's going on in my lifestyle so that made me want to push off.

01:03 But you need someone who kind of understands your culture to walk with you.

01:06 David Jukuba is the founder of an Australian based wellbeing support business for African

01:11 Australian youth and young adults.

01:13 He's calling on more training for practitioners supporting multicultural youth, something

01:17 the government says it's working on.

01:20 It's very different for a young African male to have me as his case manager or to have

01:27 someone else who might not understand certain things that he's going through as well culturally.

01:32 We're moving towards a different type of training so that it's trauma informed, the work is

01:39 going to be delivered in a way that people understand what the effects of those backgrounds

01:44 are to the young people who are in the centre.

01:47 This year the state government has invested almost $720,000 into a culturally responsive

01:53 program to address trauma and divert youth from further offending.

01:57 Funding is also available to multicultural sporting events and other activities to empower

02:02 young people.

02:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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