All programs

Additional resources are provided to help courts and legal aid keep up with demands and complexity of youth justice legislation. The service aims to provide additional support when needed to ensure court and legal processes are completed quickly. This includes resources to speed up bail applications, decision making, and other court processes to keep youths out of court and reduce the use of custody.

Transitional youth hubs provide community-based and culturally safe support to youths who are at risk of offending and entering the youth justice system, providing a safe place, activities aimed at building connections with youth, and assistance to address welfare needs.

Hubs provide after-hours support and activities to engage youth, with holistic case management support available to address the range of risks and needs that may lead to a youth offenders' ongoing involvement with police, courts, and youth justice.

Locations

• Mount Isa
• Townsville

Aggression replacement training (ART) is an evidence-based, change-oriented group program for youths who have shown violent behaviour or have been found guilty of a violent offence. ART helps youths to manage their anger and aggression by influencing positive thinking and moral value development.

ART aims to build pro-social skills, enhance positive communication, develop strategies to reduce aggression and regulation emotions, and build capacity for youths to consider the consequences of their behaviour.

What will they learn

The training has 3 parts:

• skill streaming – learning appropriate ways to respond to different situations and how to talk to someone about what is upsetting them
• anger control – learning how to keep control and calm down when they feel angry about something
• moral reasoning – learning to see what it's like to be in someone else's shoes and see how their anger can affect other people

The youth will be supported when practicing using these skills in the real world.

Who will be there

The program will be run by Youth Justice staff who are specially trained in delivering the ART program. The trainers will be the same people each week.

ART is a group program. The youth will complete the program with 4–5 other youths. No one new will join the group after the first week.

Length of the program

The program will run for 10 weeks. There will usually be 3 sessions a week. Each session lasts about 1 hour. If the youth misses a session, they will need to make it up.

The youth's Youth Justice case worker will talk to them about when the program will start. They will also talk about how the program runs.

The program is intensive and structured over the 10 weeks so that it can help the youth over a period of time to develop and practise skills for conflict resolution.

Being referred to the program

The youth can only be referred by:

• a court
• Youth Justice service centre staff
• youth detention centre staff

Alternative diversion programs (ADPs) are tailored programs for youths with the aim of addressing the youth's behaviour and reducing their chances of reoffending.

ADPs are available in circumstances where a youth's offence has been referred to restorative justice, and a restorative justice conference (RJC) cannot be held. This can be due to several reasons, such as the person harmed by the offence has chosen not to participate in the conference. Other possibilities could include the offence referred has no direct victim—driving without a licence or some drug-related offences would qualify.

Youth Justice workers design unique ADPs to suit the youth and the offence they have committed. The causes of a youth's offence are taken into consideration when designing the ADP.

ADPs can be in the form of:

• actions that the youth needs to do to repair the harm
• an activity that strengthens the youth's relationship with their family or community
• attending an educational program
• attending a service or skill workshop

ADPs are only available for certain restorative justice referral types:

• a direct police referral to restorative justice
• if the court deems that the police should have referred the offence to restorative justice (known as a Section 24A referral)
• the court decides the offence would be better dealt with by restorative justice (known as a court-diversion referral)

Below are examples of how restorative justice referrals may be completed through an alternative diversion program.

Example 1: Victim chooses not to participate in a RJC

A youth is referred for 3 counts of trespass because they have been hanging out on the roof of a business without permission and refusing to leave when asked.

The youth admits to the offences during an interview with the police and the police officer decides to refer the offence to a RJC.

The business owner and victim of the trespass decide not to be involved in the conference.

The youth meets with a Youth Justice worker and tells them they do not go to school and get bored during the day, but would be interested in a job in construction. The youth also realises their actions have affected multiple people—their family in that their parent has had to take the day off work to attend the police station, and the business owner as they have lost business as a result of the youth's offence.

An ADP is designed together with Youth Justice, the youth, and their parent, with all parties agreeing on a program to help address the youth's needs and reduce their likelihood of reoffending. The youth agrees to the following:

• apply for a White Card (construction) training course through the employment service
• apply for 3 jobs
• write a letter to the business owner to apologise and tell them the steps they are taking to make better choices

The ADP aims to keep the youth busy and connect them to meaningful work in the community. It also provides an opportunity for the youth to show to the business owner and their family that they are trying to make positive changes. Once completed the referral is close.

Example 2: No direct victim involved

A youth is referred to court for 1 count of possession of dangerous drugs after being caught smoking cannabis in the local park. They appear in court, admit to the offences, and the magistrate refers the offence to restorative justice.

The youth meets with the convenor and explains they go to school but often leave early to smoke cannabis as they get frustrated and angry a lot, and do not know any other way to deal with it. As there is no direct victim involved, the offence is referred to Youth Justice for an ADP.

Together, the youth, their carer and a Youth Justice worker design an ADP, with the youth agreeing to the following:

• complete 4 sessions of the emotional regulation and impulse control program with the Youth Justice worker
• spend an hour each weekend picking up litter at the local park supervised by their carer

The agreed ADP will be completed within 4 weeks, aiming to provide the youth with opportunities to keep them from reoffending.

Black chicks talking is a cultural program for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander young women. It supports cultural connections to community and identity and explores cultural histories through storytelling and yarning circles.

Read the factsheet (PDF, 259KB) to learn more.

Changing habits and reaching targets (CHART) is an evidence-based, intervention program that aims to help reduce the risk of youths reoffending by changing behaviour. CHART supports youths to reflect on their offending thinking and behaviour, and to develop skills to reduce future offending.

With the support of a Youth Justice case worker, each youth will complete the following program units:

• mapping my offences
• motivation to change
• thinking and offending
• problem solving
• lifestyle balance
• relapse prevention

The program includes 6 additional units:

• healthy relationships
• violence
• motor vehicle offending – delivered with the Re-thinking our attitude to driving (ROAD) program
• drugs and alcohol
• living independently
• education and work

The Youth Justice case worker will assess which, and how many, of the second group of units will be beneficial for the youth to address their offending behaviours.

How the program works

The youth and their Youth Justice case worker will work through the CHART program together at their regular appointments.

Length of the program

It will take the youth about 16–32 sessions with their Youth Justice case worker to cover the introduction to the program and complete the first 6 units. Each session will take about 30–45 minutes.

The youth's case worker will talk to them about which additional units they may need to complete—and how many sessions it will take.

Community Youth Response and Diversion (CYRD) is an early intervention response that is made up of service types based on local need and what already exists in the community.

There are three components within CYRD:

• Diversion provides after-hours engagement activities and/or outreach to youth who are displaying anti-social or offending behaviours in public spaces with the aim of connecting them to appropriate services.
• Case management undertakes holistic needs assessments and provides intensive support to youth and their families to address the risks and needs that may be leading to anti-social and offending behaviours.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural mentoring supports the social and emotional wellbeing of youths through the development of cultural identity and connection to culture and spirituality via a trusted adult mentor.

Depending on the location, one or more of the above services may be available.

Locations

• Brisbane South and CBD
• Cairns
• Gold Coast
• Ipswich
• Logan
• Townsville

The conditional bail program (CBP) supports at-risk youths whilst on bail to remain in the community, with an aim to reduce the risk of reoffending and breaching bail conditions. The program aims to connect youth offenders with gaining access to services and develop skills.

A CBP is issued to youth offenders who the court believes is at risk of not following their bail conditions. As part of the program, a youth justice officer is assigned to youth offenders on bail, helping them participate in positive activities, with access to services including:

• TAFE and other education
• life and social skills programs
• apprenticeships and traineeships
• sporting and recreational programs
• community supports.

The CBP aims to provide confidence to the courts that youths will receive individualised and intensive supervision whilst they are on bail through their youth justice officer, including recent additions to provide support hours during weekends and evenings for youths on a CBP.

Locations

Available across Queensland.

This program involves conducting diagnostic assessments to identify cognitive, behavioural, and functional needs, reviewed through multi-disciplinary case conferencing. Detailed reports and individualised support plans guide tailored interventions for the department and stakeholders.

Locations

• Brisbane and Moreton Bay region
• South East region

Early action groups (EAGs) support youths aged 8–16 who are at high risk of criminal behaviour and known to the police, but not yet subject to a supervised youth justice order, by providing early intervention and service coordination. EAGs mobilise government agencies to facilitate access to services earlier and ensure longer term non-government supports are in place. EAGs enable co-located government agency representatives to work collaboratively to provide family focused, early intervention case management responses to address factors contributing to youths' offending behaviour.

EAGs coordinate access to services to improve family functioning, engagement with education, access to health assessments and treatment, and housing support.

The Townsville Stronger Communities initiative was established in 2016 to target offending in Townsville. The initiative, now known as the Early Action Group, was established in Cairns and Mount Isa in 2023.

Locations

• Cairns
• Mount Isa
• Townsville North
• Townsville South

Electronic monitoring (EM) devices are issued to youths aged 16 years and above as part of their bail conditions. Imposed on youth offenders benefiting from more intensive bail conditions including indictable offences and a likelihood to reoffend once out on bail.

EM devices use GPS to track the location on youth offenders out on bail who have committed crimes or suspected of crimes in the community to monitor, supervise and support repeat offenders whilst in the community. The use of EM devices aims to provide a higher level of supervision and support during weekends and evenings, delivering more support to families and youth offenders during these out-of-hours times.

The devices will be used amongst youth offenders living in nominated areas across Queensland, alongside other services like family support, stable accommodation, and tailored case management to prevent youths on bail from reoffending or breaking their bail conditions.

Locations

• Brisbane North
• Cairns
• Fraser Coast
• Gold Coast
• Ipswich
• Logan
• Mackay
• Moreton
• Mt Isa
• Rockhampton
• South Brisbane
• Toowoomba
• Townsville.

Emotional regulation and impulse control (ERIC) is an evidence-informed, change-oriented program designed to encourage healthy social and emotional development. ERIC examines the underlying issues that youths may have with emotional regulation and impulse control rather than separately targeting issues of mental health, justice, or substance misuse.

Emotional regulation and impulse control are associated with good mental health and wellbeing. The program is designed to encourage healthy social and emotional development. This occurs through teaching youths skills to better identify, and manage their emotions, manage impulsivity, and make better decisions which leads to better behaviours.

The program provides a supervised On Country experience for youth involved in offending, focusing on therapeutic connections to address behaviours, identify triggers, and build readiness for change. It aims to prevent reoffending by leveraging strengths, connecting participants to support services, and fostering reintegration through education, training, employment, and prosocial activities.

The Intensive On Country program puts culture at the centre by engaging families On Country and/or in-home, to create a sense of belonging, purpose, self-worth, identity, and connectedness to kin, community, and culture.

Intensive On Country is for youths, generally aged 10-17 years who:

• are, or have been interacting with police and/or courts
• have received bail, with or without conditions
• are on youth justice community-based orders – supervised or unsupervised.

Locations:

• Cairns
• Mount Isa

The Interim Bail Response Program (BRP) works with youths on bail, exiting detention or at risk of reoffending. BRP aims to provide support to youth offenders aged 10–17 years and their families, with the purpose of reducing rates of remand and limiting the rates of reoffending whilst on bail.

Operating in nominated catchment areas across Queensland, the initiative connects youths to regular contact with case work assistance to help meet their bail conditions.

Working across 3 main support areas, the initiative will provide:

• bail support – helping address the problems faced by youths and their families with accessing court and legal representation
• family partnership – prioritising case work with family members of youths who have been deemed serious reoffenders with complex and extreme needs. Providing support to improve safety conditions, develop parenting strengths and stability within the family
• a community connector – following up on referrals from youth co-responder teams, ensuring youths connect with families and communities, including specialist services like health, disability services, and education

Locations

• Brisbane North and Sunshine Coast
• Brisbane South and Redlands
• Bundaberg
• Cairns and Yarrabah
• Cherbourg
• Gold Coast
• Hervey Bay
• Ipswich/Inala
• Logan
• Mackay
• Moreton Bay
• Mount Isa
• Rockhampton
• Toowoomba
• Townsville

The JTYouGotThis program is a community-based program with the aim of engaging youths in social activities to build confidence and connection to their community whilst reducing and addressing offending and anti-social behaviour.

By providing youths with the tools to prevent subsequent offending, this program helps youths to build confidence and personal independence, provides mentoring, cultural engagement, goal setting and post-program support.

Locations

• Cairns
• Mount Isa
• Townsville North
• Townsville South

Legal advocacy provides youths at risk of entering the youth justice system with additional support to keep them in the community and out of detention. The service works with youths on bail or re-entering the community after being released from detention to provide bail support and legal advocacy services.

Legal advocacy has been enhanced across Queensland to assist legal advocates and provide legal advice and information to youths in the youth justice system. The legal advocates represent and provide legal advice to youths, making applications for bail and provide expertise for local legal representatives.

Locations

Available across Queensland.

Multi-agency collaborative panels (MACP) is a group of government and non-government organisations working together to improve and coordinate services to meet the needs of youths, increase community safety and address systemic issues.

By working together, MACP aims to reduce the contributing factors to youths' offending, including youths engaged in serious repeat offending, and ensuring current and emerging needs of youths and their families are being met.

To achieve this, MACP works on identifying themes and trends to improve service responses, address local barriers to enable best use of existing resources, and improve communication across key agencies to support the reduction in offending for target groups.

Locations

• Brisbane
• Bundaberg
• Caboolture
• Cairns
• Central West
• Gold Coast
• Hervey Bay
• Innisfail
• Ipswich
• Logan
• Mackay
• Mount Isa
• Redcliffe
• Redlands
• Rockhampton
• Sunshine Coast
• Tablelands and Cassowary Coast
• Toowoomba and South West
• Townsville
• Western Districts

The program provides a culturally responsive service to enhance access to appropriate assessments and diagnoses, providing tailored support and strategies to address behaviours in youth that may lead to offending.

Locations

• Cairns
• Townsville

Outlook Services is a specialised state-wide team within Youth Justice and works with government departments and non-government organisations that help youths who are involved in or at risk of entering the youth justice system.

Outlook Services have a number of resources and services available which include:

• Specialist group programming support (PDF, 171KB) or (DOCX, 766KB): Committed to skill development of youth justice staff and community-based workers, Outlook Services offer group development and facilitation training – a multi-day, residential style training for designing and facilitating group-based programs for vulnerable and high-risk youths. This training has been delivered in various forms to staff and organisations working with vulnerable youth for over 40 years.
• Enhancement of youth-focused programs (PDF, 124KB) or (DOCX, 768KB): Outlook Services uses experiential learning practices and adventure-based learning activities, to work with Youth Justice service centres and community organisations to help youths reflect and make positive change.
• Facilities and site-based services (PDF, 136KB) or (DOCX, 768KB): Outlook Services manages 3 sites across Queensland. The sites are designed to service and support government departments and community organisations by offering a variety of programming, training, conferencing, and accommodation facilities. These sites are located in Cairns, Boonah, and Crows Nest. Contact each site to find out more information on the facilities and services offered:
  • Cairns (The Northern Outlook – TNO)
    646 Redlynch Road
    REDLYNCH QLD 4870
    (07) 4255 7598
    TNOB@cyjma.qld.gov.au
  • Boonah (The Southern Outlook – TSO)
    4001 Ipswich-Boonah Road
    BOONAH QLD 4310
    (07) 5460 6700
    outlookbookings@cyjma.qld.gov.au
  • Lake Perseverance Centre, Crows Nest (The Southern Outlook – TSO)
    854 Perseverance Dam Road
    CROWS NEST QLD 4355
    (07) 5460 6700
    outlookbookings@cyjma.qld.gov.au

Queensland Youth Partnership Initiative (QYPI) is an early intervention program that works to reduce anti-social behaviour and youth offending by providing outreach services and activities to youths in accessible public spaces, such as shopping centre precincts.

Activities, including supervised and structured pro-social activities, are tailored to local needs and aim to connect youths with appropriate community-based services to support their individual needs.

Locations

• Chermside
• Helensvale and Coomera
• North Lakes
• Toowoomba

Re-thinking our attitude to driving (ROAD) is an evidence-informed, change-oriented group program that targets youths with motor vehicle offences, or at risk of becoming involved in motor vehicle offences.

ROAD aims to reduce motor vehicle related offending by exploring the motivations behind unsafe motor vehicle behaviours. Youths are supported to explore thoughts, feelings, and behaviours about their motor vehicle offending and the impact it had on victims, themselves, their family, and the community.

The program develops the youth's awareness of the consequences of unsafe motor vehicle behaviours by building on concepts of victim empathy, understanding emotions, and the connections between thoughts and actions.

ROAD is delivered together with the CHART program to address motor vehicle reoffending.

Specialist Counselling Services consist of 2 distinct services:

• conferencing preparation and support for youths referred to restorative justice conference for a sexual offence
• assessment and treatment service to youths convicted of and sentenced for sexual offences.

Locations

• Statewide

Funded under the Supporting our Community program, the Garbutt Youth Hub provides a safe place and assistance to youths at risk of offending and delivers after hours programs and activities to support youths with connection to culture, education, employment, and healthy relationships.

Locations

• Garbutt

The youth and family support service (YFSS) is a free outreach service for at-risk youths aged between 10 and 17 years, and their families or caregivers.

The service is located in Brisbane and is available to youths and their families who live in the Brisbane region.

Who YFSS assists

YFSS assists youths who are at risk of offending or reoffending. They can assist where the youth:

• is in trouble with the police
• is going through or has been through court
• has been referred to youth justice conferencing
• has problems or arguments at home
• has problems with drugs
• has nowhere to live
• has problems at school - including truancy, suspension or exclusion
• has close peers who are engaging in offending behaviours.

How YFSS works

Staff visit clients at a time that suits them, in their home or community (unless they would prefer a different location). YFSS offers short to medium term support and will help youths and their families to:

• clarify their concerns and develop goals
• find individual and family strengths
• link with community services
• develop strategies to manage current and future issues
• reduce offending risk through use of evidence-based measures and tools.

YFSS work closely with other community agencies to make sure that client support is coordinated. They offer opportunities to participate in individual and peer group sessions covering:

• changing habits and reaching targets (CHART)
• aggression replacement training (ART)
• parent support
• other areas of needs

YFSS also provides referrals to other services for specialist, long-term support.

Referrals

Referrals to YFSS can be made by other government departments, non-government organisations and self-referrals.

YFSS will not replicate any service that the client is already receiving. They will not replace or duplicate other services that provide statutory youth justice interventions or child protection interventions. YFSS will only accept a referral if they can add value in meeting the client's needs.

Learn more about the referral service.

Locations

• Brisbane City Council boundaries. To learn more about the referral process or to find out if the service is available in your area, visit Youth and family support service referral.

The youth drug and alcohol treatment service provides support for youths when drugs and alcohol are factors contributing to their offending.

The aim of this service is to reduce the impact of drugs and alcohol on youths' offending and reoffending by providing a safe space for affected youths to undertake treatment programs whilst addressing offending and anti-social behaviour.

The service includes a 10-bed residential facility and provides a 3-month long residential treatment, with a 3-year follow up treatment program for all youths involved in the youth drug and alcohol treatment service.

Locations

• Statewide

Family-led decision making uses a culturally safe decision-making process that involves:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families
• community stakeholders including community-controlled organisations
• Youth Justice officers.

Family-led decision making reconnects and heals a youth's connection to their culture.

Locations

• Brisbane North
• Brisbane South
• Cairns
• Toowoomba

Young Offender Support Services help youths develop pro-social skills through case work, focusing on stable accommodation, respectful relationships, cultural and community connections, health, education/employment, informed decision-making, interpersonal skills and goal setting.

The service provides community-based, culturally safe and trauma informed support to help youths:

• be accountable for their behaviour and encourage connection to the community
• be involved in pro-social activities with their families
• improve family relationships
• reconnect with culture, family and community.

Locations

• Atherton
• Brisbane South West and Ipswich
• Cairns
• Cherbourg
• Doomadgee
• Mornington Island
• Palm Island
• South West Queensland