Truants strategy on target

The offending of 10 Geraldton youth who had been wagging school and come into early contact with police dropped by 99 per cent after being placed on a justice program to help them turn their lives around. Police and other agencies have been working with the young people, as part of the Target 120 program and WA Community Services Minister Simone McGurk was in Geraldton on Friday to provide a progress report. Target 120 is designed to prevent at-risk young people ending up in the criminal justice system. “We work with them in an intensive way to give them their best chance of a better future engaging with school and other services so that they can have a happy and healthy future,” Ms McGurk said. “The program Target 120 was so-called because police said to us if they could work proactively with 120 families around the State they think that they could get some really good outcomes.” Ms McGurk said the program ran at 11 sites across WA with young people aged 10-15. “They’re young people who have not spent any time in juvenile detention but they have had interactions with police,” she said. “All the data lead us to believe that they would end up in the justice system.” After about 12 months she said the children’s school attendance had jumped to more than 19 per cent, and the program had “flow-on” benefits for the children’s siblings. Ms McGurk said the $20.4 million, four-year program had been running for 21/2 years. In Geraldton she said it involved the police, Department of Communities, Bundiyarra and Streeties. “Quite a lot of work was done in identifying the young people that we would work with, to make sure we had our best chance to stop them ending up in the justice system,” she said. “Partly it was preparedness by the local community to pick up and do some of that work. In Geraldton you’ve got some great Aboriginal corporations and also a number of other community service providers who are able to work very effectively with regard to those young people.”