Youth Justice Services

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (15:18): My question is to the Minister for Human Services. Can the minister please provide an update on how the Marshall Liberal government is improving services and outcomes for children and young people in the youth justice system?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:18): I thank the honourable member for her question. As honourable members have been aware, these matters have been discussed in this place previously. There have been a number of changes which have been taking place in our youth justice system, including the development of a three-year plan to better provide support for children and young people, both in the Kurlana Tapa youth justice centre and also to those who are under community orders.

In particular we reviewed the operational model of the training centre itself, which focused on the long-term requirements for a consolidated site, including service delivery, staffing structures, staff wellbeing and welfare training and professional development requirements. This report was received in October this year and contains a number of recommendations, which align very broadly with the state plan.

They include ensuring that young people have a voice in decisions that affect them; identifying cohort-mixing opportunities to increase program and activity access during a structured day, while retaining separation in accommodation units; developing a practice framework to guide educational, psychoeducational and therapeutic program delivery; reviewing and further integrating the elements of positive behaviour support and considering a therapeutic community approach in collaboration with partner agencies; and reviewing training needs against principles of legislation and the state plan.

We have, pleasingly, seen the number of young people reducing in the training centre on any given day across the two sites, which I am sure honourable members would agree is very pleasing, such that in 2017-18 the average daily number of residents was 44.5. In 2018-19 that dropped to 39.8, and in 2019-20 that number has reduced to 34.5. Similarly, there have also been reductions in the number of children and young people under community orders, probably not quite to the same level of significance.

We have also undertaken a number of other reforms, which members would be aware of in terms of resident-worn spit protection, which ceased on 30 June. We have the body-worn trial, which commenced on 6 April, and we have also been able to implement full size body scanning. I am very pleased that we have received money in this budget that will enable us to consolidate the centre at the single site at Goldsborough Road. The Jonal Drive campus is outdated and does not provide the sort of environment we expect in relation to a modern therapeutic justice system.

We look forward to those developments. There are other developments at that particular site, which are ensuring that it is a more appropriate service for young people. We want to provide best practice services to people who are either under remand or in sentence detention.