A first of its kind “culturally responsive” crime prevention initiative seeks to engage young offenders who are in, or leaving, youth detention “and bring them back into the community”.
The program, rolled out in Logan last week, is winning government support with grant money coming their way.
The Keeping Our Kids Out (KOKO) Pasifika Youth Holistic Hub is run by Village Connect and taps into the expertise of community elders and youth justice workers.
It’s the first program of its type for young Pasifika people.
The aim is to help young people navigate a range of support services such as health, education, employment, career, housing, mental health, counselling and budgeting “to help reduce or stop them from reoffending”.
“It’s about working alongside community elders to work with Maori and Pasifika young people to re-engage them in the things that lead to prosocial behaviours,” minister for children and youth justice Leanne Linard said.
“When young people re-engage with family, when they re-engage with education and community, generally that’s when we see the cycle of offending broken.”
Taulago Ioane from Village Connect said it’s important to have “culturally sensitive” help available.
“As a Samoan woman and registered nurse with over eight years of experience using Pasifika values in my practices, I jumped at the chance to work with and advocate for Pasifika young people and families on this project,” she said.
“Pacific Islander people are very family-orientated and very communal in the way that we live and the way that we do things.
“When we work with our young people, we don’t just work with them, we work with their families, and those who are involved in their care.”
After reviewing a referral, community connectors work with young people and their families to identify and link them with “holistic services” to try and “turn the young person’s life around”.
Ms Ione said the connectors work to develop a strong sense of identity and connection to community for each child.
“We don’t just take an individualistic approach to the person, a holistic approach is taken into consideration with the family and whoever is involved in their care,” she said.
“When they don’t have that strong sense of identity, they can tend to lose themselves and don’t have connection and feeling of belonging to their Pacific or Maori communities.
“We have a 12 week program that we take them through where they learn about their cultural identity, we teach them life skills, we help them to find employment, or go back to school.
“So when we work with them, we find out their interests, we find out the strengths and then we work from there.
“To steer young people towards a better future, it’s critical that we build rapport and trusting relationships on a case-by-case basis so together we can identify what support is needed – from health and education through to employment and housing.”
KOKO targets children aged 10-17.
