MEDIA RELEASE
Thursday 16 April 2026
The Aboriginal Legal Service has launched a new strategy to direct children away from the justice system and towards community-based responses that help them to thrive.
The Therapeutic Pathways for Children report was developed by the Aboriginal Legal Service in partnership with the NSW Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ). The project was supported by an expert, Aboriginal-led research team at the University of New South Wales and informed by a rigorous co-design process involving Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), non-government organisations, systems-impacted Aboriginal young people and senior representatives from a range of government agencies.
“The evidence is clear: locking up kids makes it more likely they will be caught in the cycle of offending and incarceration as adults – causing more trauma and crime in the future. But we know a better way,” said Sharif Deen, Acting CEO of the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) Limited (ALS).
“This plan is about providing children with trauma-informed and culturally safe pathways away from police stations, courts and youth prisons, and back into their communities. When the needs of children and families are met, they’re less likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system in the first place,” Mr Deen said.
Most children trapped in the justice system are facing systemic challenges including racism, poverty, intergenerational trauma and unstable housing. Many of these children also live with disability and face barriers to accessing culturally appropriate diagnosis, treatment and support.
“These kids have been let down by the same decision-makers and systems meant to protect them. Our justice system was built to punish, but what children need is care and support,” Mr Deen said.
“In particular, Aboriginal children are severely over-policed and impacted by structural discrimination. Every day, they are over-represented in police stations, courts and youth prisons.”
The Therapeutic Pathways for Children report outlines four priority areas:
- Ensuring children and young people are involved in making decisions that impact them;
- Strengthening options to divert children away from the justice system and towards support in the community;
- Prioritising a service system that supports children’s wellbeing, instead of a criminal justice system response;
- Ensuring the government works with ACCOs in genuine partnership, providing them with meaningful funding to implement solutions.
The report makes several recommendations to the NSW Government to put these priorities into action.
Under the Closing the Gap Implementation Plan 2025-28, the NSW Government has allocated $13.8 million over three years for the ALS and DCJ to implement two of the solutions in the report:
- Designing and delivering a community-led pilot program to divert children away from the system; and
- Establishing a way for young people to participate in designing and delivering policies and programs that affect them – led by young people themselves as well as ACCOs.
The ALS and DCJ will partner to implement these initiatives in consultation with Aboriginal communities and organisations across NSW.
The ALS will continue to work with the NSW Coalition of Aboriginal Peak Organisations and DCJ to identify opportunities to resource and implement further initiatives from the report.
The Therapeutic Pathways for Children report can be found here.
