Leaving care and service engagement: lessons from the homelessness sector

Although many young people eventually make the transition from care to independent living successfully, others can find this transition to be particularly difficult. As a result, it has become common in the leaving care literature to further explore and understand the diversity of outcomes which exists within these populations. For example, Stein 1 argues that young people leaving care fall into three principal groups: 1. moving on 2. survivors 3. strugglers or victims.Catia Malvaso and Paul Delfabbr

Patterns of alleged offending amongst Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young people in the Northern Territory of Australia, 1997–2019

OnlinePublIn Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are much more likely to be arrested, charged with criminal offences and imprisoned than other Australians. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders comprise 49% of young people in detention but only 5.8% of the Australian population aged 10–17. This study investigated changes between 1997 and 2019 in the interaction of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young people with the justice system in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. The prevalence of young people being charged with an alleged offence decreased by more than 60% between 1999 and 2001, co-incident with the introduction of the Juvenile Diversion Scheme in August 2000. Thereafter, for non-Aboriginal young people there was a small and temporary increase, but for Aboriginal young people prevalence increased almost back to pre-2000 levels by 2015 before starting to decrease. Aboriginal young people comprised 57% of those charged with any offence in 1997, rising to 88% in 2019. Further investigation is needed to understand the reasons for divergent trends in the prevalence of alleged offending for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal young people, which may include the role of diversion, differences in the nature of offences and systemic bias and racism.Vincent Yaofeng He, John R. Condon, Catia G. Malvaso, Tamika Williams, Leanne Liddle, Harry Blagg, Steven Guthridg

Associations between adverse childhood experiences and trauma among young people who offend: a systematic literature review

First Published May 7, 2021 OnlinePublThis systematic review synthesized current knowledge about the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among young people known to have offended and examined evidence of associations between ACEs, trauma symptoms, and offending behavior. A systematic search of English-language, peer-reviewed studies published from the year 2000 onwards was conducted. A final pool of 124 studies that reported quantitative data were included in the review. The Cambridge Quality Checklist for the assessment of studies on offending was used to assess methodological quality of included studies. Pooled data indicated that almost 87% of justice-involved young people across 13 countries experienced at least one traumatic event. The odds of experiencing at least one ACE were over 12 times greater for justice-involved young people compared with nonjustice-involved young people. Prevalence of individual ACEs ranged from 12.2% for childhood sexual abuse to 80.4% for parental separation among justice-involved young people. Those who reported both a higher number and multiple types of ACEs were more likely to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress symptoms. However, when considering only high-quality studies, there was minimal evidence to suggest that a higher incidence of ACEs predicted trauma symptoms or that trauma symptoms mediated the association between ACEs and offending behavior. Further research is needed to elucidate factors that differentiate young people exposed to ACEs who go on to offend from those who do not. This research is essential to understanding whether ACEs and trauma are drivers of offending behavior and for informing prevention and intervention strategies.Catia G. Malvaso, Jesse Cale, Tyson Whitten, Andrew Day, Sara Singh, Louisa Hackett ... et al