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Pathways to a thriving future: strengthening youth justice

This dedicated Youth Justice preconference day brings together frontline youth workers, corrections leaders, legal practitioners, young people with lived experience, researchers, Aboriginal youth advocates, and policymakers for an honest, solutions-focused examination of what is working and what must change in Australia’s youth justice landscape.

7:00 AM Registration opens

8:40 AM Welcome to Country

8:50 AM Welcoming Remarks from the conference chair 

  • Delivering Multisystemic Therapy and the Youth Advocate Program to reduce reoffending and keep young people out of detention
  • Targeting the root causes of serious offending across family, peers, school, and community — not just behaviour in isolation
  • Delivering measurable outcomes: reduced reoffending, improved family functioning, increased school engagement, and less time in out-of-home placements
  • A cost-effective, trauma-informed alternative to detention that turns short-term gains into durable change

Sarah Mahony

Regional Director
Youth Justice - Child Youth and Families
Life Without Barriers

  • Establishing a definition for early prevention 
  • Working in and with the community and schools to meet high-risk youth before harm has occurred 
  • Creating seamless case co-ordination case management frameworks to ensure no one ‘falls through the cracks’ 
  • Exploring pathways, programs and prosocial activities to re-engage youth from alternative education to working towards independence 
  • Addressing funding challenges and lack of collaboration and discussion solutions that work 

Sharon Adams

Senior Practitioner, YASS
Gold Coast Youth Service

Justine Marshall

Team Leader
Gold Coast Youth Service

  • Exploring innovative diversion models
  • Engaging families and provide them with the tools to support prevention and reintegration efforts
  • Empowering community organisations to better support youth on court orders
  • Developing culturally grounded programs that uplift young people

Panellists:

Janet Killgallon

Manager, Whole of Government Initiatives Team, Policy and Practice
Youth Justice NSW

Jamie Gibson

Manager, Youth and Family Services
Wuchopperen Health Service

Dr. Annabel Prescott

Chief Executive Officer
Traction for Young People

11:00 AM Morning tea break

  • The power of community connection and why this is a significant protective factor in positive outcomes for young people
  • Developing and implementing programs that use police and emergency services members as positive role models for young people
  • Influencing systems change through early intervention models (The Blue Light Victoria Approach)

Elissa Scott

Chief Executive Officer
Bluelight Victoria

  • Building trust and engagement with young people and communities 
  • Embedding lived experience safely and meaningfully 
  • Applying co-design approaches that improve outcomes 
  • Understanding risks of excluding young people from decision-making

Panellists:

Natalie Matulick

Chief Executive Officer
Youth Affairs Council of South Australia

12:50 PM Lunch Break

  • Exploring how drama is being used to uplift understanding of the justice system and rights 
  • Evaluating outcomes and discussing how this can be scaled and replicated 
Jackie Galloway

Jackie Galloway OAM

Chief Executive Officer
Peninsula Community Legal Centre

  • How do you engage with young people as equals
  • Empowering and upskilling young people to work with decision-makers as equals
  • Follow through: creating a feedback loop and setting up an iterative process

Kate Sinclair

Solicitor, Strategic Litigation
Justice and Equity Centre

3:10 PM Afternoon tea break

  • Identifying key factors that may trigger criminogenic behaviour from school disengagement, challenging home environments and inter-generational trauma  
  • Providing pre- and post-release support for young people and their families to reduce re-offending and improve reintegration into the community  
  • The role of education and providing support for at-risk children and youth 

Michael Livingstone

Chief Operating Officer
Jesuit Social Services

4:20 PM Closing Yarning Circle 

5:00 PM Closing remarks

7:00 AM Registration opens

8:40 AM Welcome to Country

8:50 AM Welcoming Remarks from the conference chair 

Driving systemic change to drive better, fairer outcomes

  • Unpacking the journey from driving legislative changes to setting up the processes 
  • Why the panel model works and understanding what can be improved from collaboration to accountability 
  • Mapping and understanding the eight vulnerabilities and to deliver individualised support 

Justin Barker

Chair
Therapeutic Support Panel

  • Creating a culturally safe place from location in the bush to working with Aboriginal architects
  • Working in partnership with the Department of Justice and the community: building trust and respect
  • Providing programs and activities that help the men complete their orders and move away from the justice system communities 

Shaun Braybrook ACM

General Manager
Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place,
Department of Justice and Community Safety
Gippsland Region

10:20 AM Morning tea break

  • Developing integrated models to reduce fragmentation and break the cycle of incarceration and recidivism
  • Coordinating services across justice, health and community sectors that improve reintegration outcomes
  • Applying strategies to deliver coordinated care pre and post release

Panellists:

Caroline Hood

Caroline Hood

Chief Executive Officer
Prisoners Aid NSW

  • Rethinking unrealistic bail conditions that do not facilitate rehabilitation (i.e. lack of supportive environment, poor literacy, unsafe home environments)
  • Identifying how bail conditions need to evolve to account for cultural differences, remote areas and different home environments
  • Supporting families and communities to stabilise young people early and reduce the chances of escalation into custody
Lea-Ann McNeill

Lea-Ann McNeil

Director, Policy and Programs, Youth Crime Group
Queensland Police Service

12:10 PM Lunch Break

  • Exploring how stakeholder engagement, including lived expertise, can shape more effective responses
  • Understanding how judicial and workforce capability can be strengthened to support consistent, trauma-informed practice
  • Investigating policy and procedural settings can be aligned to enable, rather than constrain, better outcomes
Hayley Foster

Hayley Foster

Director – Family Violence & Access, Equity and Inclusion
Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia

  • Understanding the intersection of  disability, justice, mental health and NDIS and how they can align to deliver better outcomes 
  • Exploring clinical, justice and therapeutic responses, diversion programs and prevention programs 
  • Mapping out systems, streamlining  processes and mitigating risks 
Headshot Neylon

Dr Samantha Neylon

Director Disability Justice Service, Disability Division
Department of Communities WA

2:30 PM Afternoon tea break

Topic 1: Practical strategies to deliver real Aboriginal community-led prevention and reintegration programs

Topic 2: Developing employment pathways to prevent reoffending

Facilitator:

Caroline Hood

Caroline Hood

Chief Executive Officer
Prisoners Aid NSW

Topic 3: Navigating limited funding and short-termism to ensure reintegration and early intervention programs thrive

Facilitator:

Juergen Kahne

Juergen Kaehne

Principal Managing Lawyer, Aboriginal Families Practice
Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service

Topic 4: Driving the cultural and systemic shift from punitive to restorative justice

  • Identifying key risk factors that lead up to catastrophic public crimes – singular events that force policy changes in community safety 
  • Delivering a collaborative risk and violence assessment framework 
  • Strategic service co-ordination – aligning systems across the health, human services and justice sectors – to prevent people from ‘falling through the cracks’ 
  • Outcomes in assertive referral and outreach – engaging the ‘hard to engage’ 

Vaughan Winther

Chief Executive Officer
ACSO

  • Integrating models to reduce fragmentation and break the cycle of incarceration and recidivism
  • Coordinating services across justice, health and community sectors that improve reintegration outcomes
  • Applying strategies to deliver coordinated care pre and post release

Charlie Rowe – Kamilaroi

CEO
AFLSQ

5:00 PM End of Conference Day 1

Improving service design, delivery and outcomes

8:00 AM Registration opens

8:50 AM Welcoming Remarks from the Conference Chair 

Optimising prevention and reintegration initiatives

  • Identifying systemic gaps that create barriers to rehabilitation, diversion and reintegration (i.e. accessing Centrelink payments, education, health)
  • Strengthening cross-agency coordination and case management to improve continuity of care between services
  • Designing simpler service models that provide holistic support

Professor Susan Dennison

PhD, Director
Transforming Corrections to Transform Lives

  • Creating partnerships that work between Corrections, NGOs and ACCOs to deliver better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and the community at large 
  • Highlighting the importance of setting up reporting sites that are safe and culturally-grounded and its impact on progressing through community orders 
  • Upskilling and supporting staff to a rehabilitative corrections response 
  • Next steps: evaluating what works and what can improve

Natalie Veenstra

Assistant Commissioner Community Corrections
ACT Corrective Services

Leigh Thompson

Assistant Commissioner Offender Reintegration
ACT Corrective Services

10:20 AM Morning tea break

  • Providing people in custody with a connection to families and communities
  • Helping them keep in contact with legal services, health services and much more
  • Building a strong partnership with police

Kristie-Lee Costello

General Manager
Murri Watch

Stephanie Bonney

Program Co-ordinator
Murri Watch

  • Bridging the gap between legislation, policy intent, and lived experience in the justice system 
  • The role of independent, trauma-informed support in enabling victim-survivors to understand and exercise their rights 
  • Strengthening coordination across justice, legal and support systems through relational, place-based models 
  • The power of co-location and place-based support, including within Community Corrections, to reach those who fall through service gaps 
  • Insights from frontline practice to inform system reform, early intervention, and integrated responses

Sophie Wheeler

Chief Executive Officer, Victims’ Support Unit
VOCAL

12:10 PM Lunch Break

  • Investigating how disconnected systems create inefficiency and retraumatisation
  • Understanding impact of repeated assessments and poor information sharing
  • Learning what effective cross-agency collaboration looks like
  • Applying practical strategies to improve coordination
  • Understanding how to support respondents comply with court orders
  • Educating them on what family violence is and issues of coercive control – breaches of order and what constitutes a breech
  • The importance of reality testing
  • The positive outcomes on families and the courts system

Joharna Wynaden

Principal Lawyer
Sussex Street Community Law

2:40 PM Afternoon tea break

  • Understanding the gaps in the justice system and how it contributes to, rather than prevents recidivism and disadvantage 
  • Highlighting the importance of housing, effective reintegration support and healing post release and why the Rainbow Lodge model works 
  • Investigating the systemic obstacles and how partnerships and collaboration are key to breaking the cycle 
Claude

Claude Robinson

Manager
Rainbow Lodge

  • Understanding distinct pathways and challenges faced by women 
  • Recognising impact of trauma, family separation and disadvantage 
  • Designing targeted, cohort-specific interventions 
  • Improving reintegration outcomes across vulnerable groups 
Vanessa Holiis

Vanessa Hollis

Director, Women’s System Reform, Transformation Office
Queensland Corrective Services

4:30 PM End of Conference Day 2

One of the biggest shortcomings of the justice system is that agencies operate within siloes and the is little opportunity to collaborate and develop sustainable solutions. This workshop looks to uncover and address those gaps with a view of breaking the cycle.

Learning outcomes:

  • Shining a light on the gaps and brainstorming solutions to overcome them
  • Improving partnerships and relationships across the justice system
  • Building practical models for cross-agency coordination
  • Improving information sharing and accountability across systems
  • Identifying barriers to integration and how to overcome them
  • Applying frameworks that deliver consistent, person-centred outcomes

12:00 PM Networking luncheon

By the time an individual makes contact with the justice system, it is already too late. This session will explore early intervention and prevention strategies before the offending starts. It will address the importance of having safeguards in place and working with at-risk individuals before the offending behaviour starts.

Learning objectives:

  • Exploring innovative early intervention and prevention strategies
  • Preventing recidivism: Improve reintegration planning and service delivery
  • Aligning funding, policy and practice to long-term outcomes
  • Developing actionable strategies to reduce system demand

The program is currently being developed and will available shortly.

Enquire to Speak