00:00It's a quiet night in Kananara, as officers find girls under 10 wandering the streets.
00:16As officers are looking for a safe home for the girls, the town as a whole is looking
00:22for ways to address youth crime challenges affecting children aged between 10 and 17.
00:28Extra police have flown to Kananara to assist, but locals know the answers must come from within.
00:37We have the answers here. Aboriginal people have the answers.
00:40We just need to be engaged in meaningful ways that help create outcomes.
00:46What do we need?
00:48After years working for Youth Justice, Tamale Howard opened a cafe that she runs as a social enterprise.
00:54It comes back to working with families. We're working with intergenerational trauma issues.
01:03Healing has to be part of the solution.
01:05A solution driven by locals.
01:07As a young Indigenous person here in Kananara, they look up and they find another Aboriginal
01:12person and say, well it might not be that hard if we can do it. They don't have to look too
01:16far to find what not to do within their own households or within their families. So if
01:20we can have those daily chats on what they can do and what they can aspire to be and they
01:25need someone with a helping hand along the way.
01:27I feel like it is good to have role models around the community for kids to look up to and see you
01:32doing good things and maybe think, oh yeah, I want to do that too. How do they do that?
01:37The Aboriginal Legal Service says removing children from families that need support
01:42does not address the root causes of the problem.
01:45Some children who have been removed from their homes and placed to farm community placements,
01:50those children are also involved in re-offending. So the idea that you can remove children and
01:57place them in separate homes or put them in secure placements and the offending will stop,
02:01that's not true.
02:02She also says detention is not a solution.
02:06If you take that child and you put them in detention for three days at our police station
02:12and then fly them down to Perth off-country to an alien environment,
02:16I think you're not necessarily teaching that child a lesson.
02:21You're just adding trauma for an already traumatized child.
02:25What's your favorite?
02:27The rest.
02:28There are safe spaces for children in Kananara, but they're not open 24-7.
02:34A new night space is due to open next year, to extend that support throughout the night.
02:45It's 1am and these girls are at the local police station,
02:49with officers unable to find the responsible adult to look after them.
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