Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Aaron Hendry: Kickback co-founder and youth worker on the Government's boot camp program for youth offenders

Transcript

Aaron Hendry: Kickback co-founder and youth worker on the Government's boot camp program for youth offenders · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Boot camps are back for young offenders. This is the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: second pilot, starting Monday, ten teenagers. Last time, six of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the ten participants reoffended while they were on the program.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: One of them died in a car accident sadly.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: A review acknowledged the extent of the reoffending, but also
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: noted the seriousness and the frequency of the offending had
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: reduced for those in the pilot when compared to a
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: control group. Aaron Hendry is youth development worker and Kickback
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: co founder with me this morning. Hey Aaron, Hey sure,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I man, good, thank you. So. Look, it's not perfect,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: but none of these things are, but it sounds like
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: there might be a glimmer of hope there.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Look, I think if we stood back and loot of
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: the evidence and expertise around, you know what really works
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: for kids, we wouldn't be we wouldn't be going ahead
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: with another boot camp. Basically, essentially, what we're trying to
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: do is make an already flawed child prison system work.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: We're putting millions of dollars into this project for a
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: very small cohort of young people. At the same time,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: we're pulling the resources out of the community that are
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: essentially needed to prevent children from needed to come into
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: the justice system in the first place.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Where are the resources being pulled from these millions?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Look, look, what we're seeing, at least in the community
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: is a real lack of access to housing. There's a
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: real lack of you know, intensive support for FINO for children,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: and the kickback the kids that keep back serves that
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: these are the kids that are on their pathway to
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: the justice system, right These are children that are experiencing homelessness,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: that are sleeping rough you know, the youngest wood men
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: is nine, starting to steal to survive, starting to get
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: into really like dangerous situations and doing some pretty dangerous stuff. Right.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: There is not the resources in the community right now
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: to adequately respond to those children with the speed that
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: they need that response. And that has gotten a lot
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: harder over the last couple of years. And so what
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: our government should be doing and have been advised to do,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: is start to really invest in our community so we
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: can do that early intervention really really well. And where
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: is that where there is a need for you know,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: a far more intensive reproound support that that is done
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: within local communities, within final environments, and we provide the
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: support both to Fino and to Tamaitiki and Tonga. Right,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: one of the concerning things I think we have around
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: the extend of the second boot camp, right, so we've
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: we've extended it now so three months to six months.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: That's going to be resource intensive. But what we know
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: is where the boot camp has failed is in the transition.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: So the government knew this coming into it, where they
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: struggle as a transition. Now that that's that's the resources
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: around housing support, addressing poverty, addressing what's going with a
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: final home, access to disability support, final support, all those
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: sort of things. That investment supports early intervention and it
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: supports transition, but we aren't seeing a real significant increase
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: in the resources to go into that transition. We always
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: know that in a real secure environment like the you know,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: like the boot camps, like other child prison models, you're
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: going to reduce advanisure in that short period of time
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: while they're in they're in the care.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: You mentioned a nine year old that you're looking after
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: that's stealing to survive or about to stay stealing to survive.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: What's where's why is where is the nine year old living?
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: And why aren't they getting money?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So we meet, we meet a range of children. Right,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: so we had you know, almost twenty percent of the
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: children that we met over the young people we serve
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: over last year, we're under fifteen, right, So these are
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: kids that they're FINO often really struggling in poverty, housing
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: and security, homelessness themselves. You know, many of the children
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: that we see coming through our doors that are in
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: those situations have some form of disability, form of disability.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this nine year old, I mean, it's quite a
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: shocking example. You've raised this nine year old. So where's
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: mum and dad? Where are they living?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, Look, I won't speak about like very specific circumstances,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: but what I'll say in terms of the context of
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: the children that we about the context of the children
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: that we meet, including you know, kids as young as
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: there is that that often the FINO themselves are in
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: politic they're often experiencing homestide, and the many many times
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the talking and the families that we're talking about really
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: love their kids and are trying to do the best
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: they can to support them. But the real comp six
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: stuff happening for those children, and the support for the
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: final who just is not there and know I said before,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: you know that they're consume around faced and other disabilities.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Some parents are just really struggling to understand how can
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: we support our child with all the stuff that they've
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: gone through and they don't have the adequate support something
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: from the children we're talking about right now, Yeah, looking
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: like needing life long support and those resources aren't in
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: place for them.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I've got to live there, Aaron, We've got to run.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Aaron Hendri, youth development worker. Kickback co founded for more
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to news
• 4:47
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• 4:50
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