Community urged to put money where mouth is to stop youth crime

Forty per cent of children in detention have been through the child protection system, with a leading advocate saying trying to fix the youth crime crisis without early intervention is “like fighting a bushfire with a broken hose”.

Trying to stop the youth crime crisis engulfing the state without intervening early in the lives of disadvantaged children is “like fighting a bushfire with a broken hose”, according to a leading Brisbane charity.

Community organisation Community CEO Karen Dare and a small group of volunteers were desperately trying to scrape enough funds together to build Bindi Bindi Place, Queensland’s first purpose-built, high-quality, multidisciplinary specialist care centre care for children under six.

Once built, the centre’s focus will be on educating and nurturing the state’s most vulnerable and invisible children – babies and kids aged zero to six who are at risk of entering the child protection system, or already in out-of-home care.

Two in five children in detention have been through the child protection system. (Photo by Glenn Hunt/Getty Images)

Ms Dare said the idea came about when her organisation was seeing more and more families in need of support.

“We were seeing more and more situations where children particularly under six, have remained in the care of their parents in fairly risky environments.

“But we just really wanted to look at a new model where we could, when trying to keep families together and we’re trying to build families’ skills in responsible parenting, that we’re not doing that at the expense of the child being left to languish.

An artist's impression of Bindi Bindi Place.

“So the idea came that we would develop a sort of co parenting or co caring program where the children can come in to the centre, and we have a whole range of specialist services to be able to nurture and provide those children with enriched care giving and also enriched early learning.”

Two in every five children in juvenile detention have been involved in the child protection system and there were almost 30,000 child protection notifications made in the last financial year.

Ms Dare said so much development happened in a child’s brain in the first years that could impact them for the rest of their lives.

“It’s about giving them the best start in life, while we’re working with parents on the issues that are impacting on their capacity to parent well, so that could be mental health and drug and alcohol. It could be DV, poverty, homelessness, a whole range of reasons, these parents love their kids, nut don’t know how to parent.”

Community CEO Karen Dare. Picture supplied

Ms Dare said government agencies such a child safety, justice, health were al very supportive of this “disrupter” to help break the cycle.

A block of land has been purchased at Zillmere ready to build the state-of the-art facility but more funding is needed.

“Child protection is everyone’s responsibility … and if anyone wants to help, we would be so happy, because it takes a village and it’s going to take a big effort to get this up and going,” she said.

“But I think once we’ve got our building up and we’re caring for kids, we can care for up to 48 children at a time, it will make a big difference.”