Trauma Responsive Practice in Youth Justice

Justice – are we doing what we think we’re doing?

Youth justice systems across Australia are grappling with balancing their role in supporting young people with meeting community expectations about managing and responding to their behaviour.

The way we define a problem frames the way in which we as a society respond to the problem. How our justice system frames the management of offenders, including rehabilitation and reintegration into society, dictates whether we offer the opportunity for healing or punishment to vulnerable people.

Offender management systems are predominantly based on individual personality theories of crime, which do not consider the impact of trauma on young people and how this may impact criminogenic pathways.

The session will explore how the justice system measures rehabilitation by the recidivism of criminal behaviours and not the appearance of hope-based behaviours and healing. In this context, we explore why behavioural changes often seen in detention environments recede after release.

The evidence is clear that children and young people in youth justice settings have often experienced complex developmental trauma. As such, trauma informed approaches have significant validity in both custodial and community services. In particular, youth justice services can be critical in providing a unique opportunity for the implementation of trauma informed interventions that are grounded in principles of consistency and predictability.

This dedicated youth justice training will provide staff with an insight into how traumatised young people behave. Staff, at all levels, can then work more effectively with the young people, thereby helping them to gain an understanding of their behaviour, take responsibility for themselves and develop negotiated, positive relationships within a youth justice detention centre or across community programs.

Evidence shows that trauma-informed approaches that build young people’s strengths and attachments will assist the young person to understand and recover from the impact of their traumatic experiences, reducing the likelihood that they will continue to engage in high-risk and anti-social behaviour.

The session will provide real strategies for the provision of early intervention for our young people who have potentially increased capacity for transformation due to higher levels of neuroplasticity than adult offenders. Trauma responsive strategies may reduce the current 80% transition rate from youth detainment to adult imprisonment.

This session will demonstrate how trauma informed and culturally strong knowledge can redefine the functions of our youth justice system to that of facilitating healing and recovery form trauma. We will also consider the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australian justice system from the context of trauma.

Bonus tool ‘Are we trauma responsive’ virtual walkthrough assessment tool for each participant!