Development of a Youth Justice Disability Action Plan - Improving outcomes for young people with a disability involved with Youth Justice

Directorate: Strategy & Engagement

Division: Youth Justice

Project summary

The development of a Youth Justice Disability Action Plan aims to address the over-representation of young people with a disability in the criminal justice system and improve outcomes for young people with a disability and their families. It develops and promotes a more flexible model of service delivery which provides early NDIS referral and implements timely and targeted supports.

Focus Area: 

• Improving access to mainstream services through better systems and processes.

Project objective

The project seeks to:

• examine the current ways in which other criminal justice jurisdictions work with young people with disabilities
• develop a Disability Action Plan using the Disability Issues Paper, staff consultation, data analysis and literature review
• document the current Youth Justice initiatives, formal and informal, that work effectively with young people with disabilities
• provide advice on future actions required relating to service delivery, programming and training to improve service provision to young people with disabilities

The challenge

Young people with disabilities are considerably over-represented and have earlier and more frequent contact with the criminal justice system.

Often these disabilities have been previously undetected, undiagnosed or inconsistently reported.  Processes required to gain a diagnosis and refer to appropriate supports are complex and difficult to navigate.

Young people with disabilities have more complex crininogenic needs, with behaviours often interpreted and responded to through a criminogenic rather than functional framework.

This project aims to streamline inconsistencies in diagnosis, NDIS referral and implementation of necessary supports, so that best outcomes can be achieved for each young person.

Why is this important?

The benefits of this project include having an agreed direction for Youth Justice to improve services to young people with disability:

• through diversion and early intervention
• by equipping them to reach their full potential through targeted supports and accessible interventions
• by reducing barriers to appropriate assessment and diagnosis, accessing NDIS, advocacy services and other supports
• by upskilling staff.

What will success look like?

With the development of the Disability Action Plan, Youth Justice will have a clear direction to improve it's service to young people with a disability. At the end of implementation of the Plan Youth Justice will be a more youth-centric service which listens to the individual needs of each young person with a disability and their family, and will respond in a culturally sensitive, therapeutically targeted manner to ensure best outcomes for each young person.

Youth Justice will have implemented routine screening of all young people involved with Youth Justice to ensure timely identification, diagnosis and referral. Youth Justice staff will also be more skilled to recognise and correctly progress any presenting disability issues, and provide ongoing referral, support and advocacy for each young person with disability.

Using accessible resources, interventions and programs which meet the individual needs of each young person, Youth Justice will provide a more equitable service to young people with a disability and their families. Data collection will also be streamlined to identify and respond to young people with a disability more efficiently and effectively.

How will you measure success?

Youth Justice will include a monitoring framework as part of the Disability Action Plan implementation to monitor changes in outcomes and service delivery satisfaction for young people with a disability in contact with Youth Justice.

Summary of key stages

Key Actions	Outcome	Due date	Status
Establish YJ Disability working group	completed	June 2019	completed
Invite & collate feedback on Disability Issues Paper	feedback provided and collated	1 July 2020	completed
Invite & collate feedback from YJ staff including psychologists, case workers, assistant managers, area managers, custodial case workers, AM client services	feedback provided and collated	30 July 2020	completed
Draft the Disability Action Plan	completed	20 October 2020	completed
Workshop the disability action plan internal stakeholders	Workshop completed	18 Nov 2020	completed
Invite feedback of draft action plan from external stakeholders	Updated draft DAP	20 December 2020	progressing
Submit action plan to ELT for endorsement	ELT brief and final DAP	February 2021	not started
Distribute action plan to YJ for implementation		March 2021	not started

Status report

Current Status: Progressing

Date: 19/11/2020

Status Notes:

Status Explanatory Note:

Status reports provided: