Benefits of reaching across boundaries
By Inspector Glenn Doyle
No two families are the same.
This has never been clearer to me than through my work in leading the Townsville Stronger Communities Action Group.
Through our grassroots work in coordinating services for at-risk children and their families, we’re confronted daily with a whole range of complex issues.
We see everything from poor school attendance to mental health and behavioural problems, accommodation concerns and lack of positive parenting.
These and other underlying issues often lay at the heart of why some young people rebel and go on to commit crime.
Many of the families we’ve met were already receiving government and non-government services, however rarely were they coordinated. Often the service providers were not even known to each other.
In other cases, families’ needs had not been raised, and consequently remained unmet.
Having parents and service providers sit down together with action group members means we’re able to gain a bird’s eye view of the issues facing an individual family.
From here we can coordinate services, reduce any duplication, and reach out to any other services that may be required.
And, importantly, we can often ensure necessary actions are fast tracked.
This way of operating is a rethink of the standard approach to youth crime, as it means reaching across traditional boundaries between agencies and departments more than ever before.
It’s early days for the action group, however we’re seeing individual families and children benefit from this new approach.
And as young people turn their lives around and become involved in meaningful and positive activities, we’re confident the benefits of this will be felt by the community as a whole.
