IMHIP-Youth Project: Findings from a workshop on Alcohol and Other Drug Problems, June 2021

The IMHIP-Youth project addresses gaps in research and services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people (10-17 years) who experience detention, the vast majority of whom have unmet social and emotional wellbeing needs.

The aim is to achieve beneficial mental health, social, emotional, and wellbeing outcomes and to prevent reincarceration by improving responses to engage with young people in the criminal justice system. The project seeks to co-design, implement, and evaluate an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led in-reach and community transitional model of social and emotional wellbeing care (IMHIP-Youth) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people who experience youth detention.

As part of the co-design process, the project team intended to host a series of focussed workshops, examining different elements of social and emotional wellbeing needs and gaps. The first of these, focussed on Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) needs of young people, was hosted in Brisbane, on 8 June 2021. The workshop focused on the issues relating to the children, young people and youth aged 10-18 years in detention or who had a past or current already experienced of detention. Additionally, the workshop identified issues that arose when these children, young people and youth were transitioning (back) into to the wider community. Fifty (50) attendees, including community members and service providers, from various organisations and departments who worked in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community or who worked in AOD or other partnering organisations and services, attended on the day the face-the-face workshop. A further fifteen (15) people who were unable to attend provided a combination of written and verbal feedback, which has been included in this report.

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