Our strategic approach
There is a deficit of love, hope and connection in the youth justice system and a need to reframe the system towards care and healing. Commendable progress has been made towards a child centred approach to youth justice, but this momentum must be maintained and the deep structural inequalities and urgent challenges that persist addressed.
Our strategic approach, Building our Movement for Change, has been shaped with our members and young advocate alumni and is the result of deep reflection on how we might affect change. In addition to seeking reform to policy, legislation and practice, we are expanding our toolbox to test ways to address the system at every layer—shifting power, disrupting entrenched disparities, and shaping narratives that surround children in conflict with the law.
The Alliance for Youth Justice mobilises the knowledge of our 70+ members and the children they work with across four core pillars:
Shape systems & narratives: Co-producing priorities for influencing, promoting changes to legislation, policy, and practice, and exploring new methods to shift public attitudes.
Mobilise our membership: Facilitating direct engagement between alliance members and decision-makers, broadening the diversity of voices within our network, and supporting collaboration.
Amplify voices of those most impacted by the system: Partnering with members to engage with children through bi-annual youth voice forums, making deeper connections at a community level, and building on the success of the Young Advocates project.
Collaborate with allies: Broadening our connections with others working on issues that drive children into the justice system, working with and through networks led by, and for, people experiencing racial injustice, while modelling anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices in everything we do.