The new Traditional Owner patrol pilot program has been granted $230,000 in funding from Alice Springs Town Council, and is set to run for 12-weeks.

In the first two weeks over six days of patrols, patrollers engaged with 219 people, 109 of which were youths.

Traditional Owner Phillip Alice is leading the team of four made up of men and women – set to grow in the future, who will engage with youths on the street, identify reasons behind why they are there and enforce cultural lore, and follow up with their families.

Mr Alice said after 25 years of working on the police force he has seen a lot, and he has always wanted to try to change the community around.

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“I wanted to get a team of Traditional Owners, as custodians of this community and of this town, and get them together as a team, and then we walk the streets and we identify the kids, and where they come from, and who they’re stopping in town with.

“The next day we follow up with their families and say to these parents, ‘These kids cannot be walking around late at night, without the parents being there. And as an Arrernte man of this country, for Traditional Owners of the land, when we go to your community, we don’t run amok, our kids don't run amok’.”

The aim of the program is to return youths safely to their community, put the onus back on the parent’s and communicate that “education starts from home”.

“That’s what I want to do here with Aboriginal lore, because our culture law is very strong. So we want to let everybody know this is Arrernte country. And people that come here are just visitors, and they need to respect our country.”

Mr Alice said the Traditional Owners will work to “put the responsibility back on the parents”.

“It is very dangerous for the kids to be walking around at night. It’s sad to see – small kids might say that they are hungry, or we’ve got no money to go home for food. It’s a lot a lot of bad things you hear from kids, and it’s sad, but if something’s happening at home, we need to work towards it but also really get the kids off the streets.

“If we don’t know the kids, we’ll find out who they are, who they related to. We would find out what’s going on and what’s going on at home. And if they’ve got a problem, we would help work out a solution.”

“Everybody is welcome to Alice Springs. But the kids need to be walking around with their parents only. Not with their mates.”

Resident’s feedback so far have been very positive, Mr Alice said, and said he encouraged all of the community to get involved as it was a whole of town issue.

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He said Traditional Owners have a lot to offer to the town, but had never been given the opportunity to do something like this, until now.

“We are walking the walk and talking the talk. We are engaging with a lot of elders from other communities.

“My team is going to be there day and night and we’re going to be reinforcing to the kids that they need to go home to their parents … we can just keep on reinforcing until they keep seeing us every day.”