YOUTH Co-Responder Team (YCRT) members from across Queensland have joined Queensland Police Service (QPS) and Youth Justice staff for a forum, to collaborate in the fight against youth crime.
The YCRT is an initiative which brings together a police officer and youth justice worker to proactively engage at-risk young people and their families and refer them to services to address the underlying issues contributing to their offending behaviour.
The forum brings YCRT members together to collaborate on the positive impacts the program has made and to align shared goals and priorities into the future.
Supported in discussion by experts in neuroscience, youth, policing and social development, the YCRTs are advancing the future focus of intervention and prevention in the youth crime space.
Youth Justice Minister Di Farmer said she has seen first-hand the work of the Youth Co-Responder teams and witnessed how successful the initiative is.
“These teams, which operate across the state, teaming youth justice workers with police, are reaching high risk young offenders,” she said.
“Prevention is one piece of the puzzle – by uniting the expertise of police and youth justice workers, the teams are able divert young people away from offending.
“This forum gives our teams an opportunity to share ideas on how to re-engage young people in education, diversionary programs, and support families to keep them on the straight and narrow.”
The YCRT initiative was established in March 2020, and has now been successfully rolled out in 13 police districts in Queensland.
So far YCRTs across the state have conducted more than 78,045 engagements with at-risk young people, helping re-engage them with education, obtain employment, maintain compliance with bail conditions and engage with social programs.
The forum allows YCRT members to share their stories of success and opportunities to improve how YCRT engages young people to disrupt the cycle of young people offending.
The YCRT have now been launched in 13 Policing Districts across the state, with 78,045 of engagements conducted state-wide so far since 2020.
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