WEAVE as One of Several Community-Based Organisations - Case Study Example

Community based organisation Institution Name Course Instructor’s name Date of submission Introduction WEAVE is one of several community based organisations operating in Sydney. The name WEAVE is an acronym for Working to Educate, Advocate, Voice and Empower, which are the organisations main functions. This particular organisation is based in Southern Sydney and operates in the Southern and Eastern sides of Sydney. The organisation aims to encourage and empower people who have experienced issues relating to mental health, homelessness, depression, addiction, generational trauma, poverty and justice. The organisation is specifically interested in the well being of disadvantaged people and marginalized groups especially those from Aboriginal communities. The organisation, formerly known as South Sydney Youth Services was founded in 1975 by several local parents from the area. The organisation carries its activities through a number of programs such as Kool Kids Club, WEAVEs art centres and Speakout among others. These programs are primarily targeted to juvenile offenders in the region to rehabilitate them and help them stay away from crime. This paper thus looks at the government’s policy on juvenile justice in general as a social policy and gives an overview of how this particular policy affects the activities and policies of WEAVE as a community based organisation. Discussion Juvenile Justice Program is a Commonwealth government’s initiative aimed at maintaining law and justice among the youth. The program ensures that young offenders below the legal age of 18 are not tried in regular courts. The program ensures that the law is applied in a specialised manner to young offenders. The forms of punishment meted to these young offenders are not similar to the ones applied to adult offenders. The juvenile justice program is a part of the common wealth government’s social policy that strives to improve quality of life for all Australians. In the previous financial year, social policy and welfare accounted for the largest portion of the budget. State governments and local governments also have a role in managing this welfare policy. The judicial system plays a handy role in that it metes out punishment to young offenders while at the same time seeks to rehabilitate them into better members of the community. In so doing, young offenders are either placed under supervision of community based organisations or are detained at juvenile correctional facilities. The government recognises that the situation of young offenders is delicate and thus requires to be handled differently from the way adult offenders are handled. The government is committed to reduce cases of incarceration of young people and instead work on reducing their exposure to criminal activities. This program was established in 198i and has seen the number of juvenile detainees per 100,000 head of population drop from 64.9 in 1981 to 37 as of 2008 (Juvenile justice, 2012). Juvenile crime has been categorised into several groups. These are drugs and alcohol, economic crime, violence, environmental crime, property crime, organised and transnational crime and cybercrime. Drugs and alcohol and violence are the most common juvenile crimes reported. The government, under the office of the attorney general seeks to reducing offences committed by indigenous youth and decrease the Aboriginal over-representation in the juvenile justice system. In so doing, community safety will be enhanced and the quality of life in the society will be generally improved. To assist the department in achieving these goals are community based organisations such as WEAVE As a community based organisation, WEAVE was established by members of the Eastern Sydney community to address the issues facing them. The organisation is funded mainly by donations from individuals and independent organisations to run its activities. As a non profit making organisation, all of WEAVE’s services are free. These services are offered free of charge to specified groups of the community intended to improve their social welfare. Currently, the organisation relies largely from donations from individuals and corporate organisation through their CSR programmes. There are about 2000 people enrolled in the various programs currently with 60% of them being from Aboriginal communities (WEAVE 2012). The juvenile justice program at WEAVE is aimed at young people between the age of ten and eighteen years who have undergone the process of the government juvenile justice system are perceived to be at risk of offending. The organisation draws majority of its recruits from the surrounding neighbourhoods. Specifically, the program targets young persons who have been incarcerated are nearing to be released and are the Post Release Support Program and those in the Local Offender Program under the supervision orders from the Juvenile justice system. The program acknowledges that there is a higher concentration of Aboriginal youth in the justice system and hence embarks on assisting such youth in their cases. The WEAVE Fitness Program which is sponsored by the Juvenile Justice Program aims to engage the youth in healthy living and physical and mental fitness. This fitness program is held on every Friday of the week. In the recent past, some of these weekly fitness programs have been held at the Alleyway Community Gym in Maroubra Beach. This too is another community based facility operated by local people. These local people also act as trainers to the young people instilling boxing skills and ensuring all round fitness. All these programs are recognised by the local Juvenile Justice Program as rehabilitative efforts on the affected youth (WEAVE 2012). The high number of Aboriginal people enrolled in the programs reflects the national statistics on crime prevalence which is higher among Aboriginal communities. Nonetheless, this does not imply that non Aboriginal Australians are not prone to criminal behaviour. The young people have in the recent past been increasingly involved in criminal activities. The country’s juvenile justice system, whose jurisdiction lies with the state and territory governments and the involved government agencies, oversees punishment and rehabilitation of young offenders. Punishment for young offenders includes supervision and rehabilitation, an area in which WEAVE specialises in. According to the Juvenile justice in Australia 2009 report, there were 7,200 young Australians under daily supervision for the whole of 2008-2009 year with about 14, 500 more having been under supervision at some time in the same year. Nearly 90% of these young people were under the supervision of community based organisations while the rest were in detention. Indigenous young people aged 10–17 years were 14 times as likely to be under community-based supervision on an average day as their non-Indigenous counterparts and 24 times as likely to be in detention (Australian institute of criminology 2012). WEAVE has chosen to respond to the rising number of young offenders from the Aboriginal community by providing programs that are aimed at rehabilitating them and engaging them in productive activities to stay away from crime and be responsible members of the society. In fact, data from the Juvenile justice in Australia indicates that the “Indigenous young people aged 10–17 years were 14 times as likely to be under community-based supervision on an average day as their non-Indigenous counterparts and 24 times as likely to be in detention” (Juvenile justice vi). With such staggering statistics of the high number of juveniles in need of supervision, there is need for better equipped community organisation with necessary programs necessary in rehabilitating young offenders. However, it must be noted that majority of community based organisations have wide programs to cater for different age groups and needs. The Commonwealth government and all state governments recognises that all children bear criminal responsibility if ten years or older. This age is capped at 17 years in all states except in Queens land where it is capped at 16 years. This implies that persons below 17 years can only be judged under the juvenile legal system. From empirical evidence on the ground, Australia uses a statist approach towards social policy. The government is looked upon to provide proper welfare to the people in form of education and general wellbeing. One of the early developers of this statist approach, Richard Titmuss proposed that, for a society to be performing well in social welfare terms, the people should be capable of expressing their true altruistic feelings. Arguing from this perspective, then the government has performed poorly more in ensuring the welfare of the Aboriginal people. There are numerous reports on the media showing how Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islanders have been marginalised. Aboriginal communities living in rural areas lack basic amenities that the government should provide. Schools, hospitals and roads are missing in rural areas. Young Aboriginal people are over represented in the Juvenile Justice Program (WEAVE 2012, Maher 2012). This phenomenon has been attributed to many variables with some arguing that the Aboriginal people are more likely to commit crime than non-Aboriginals. However, there are numerous underlying factors that require deeper analysis. Maher (2012) indicates that the large number of Aboriginals in the Juvenile Justice Program could be as a result of Australia’s history and how the issue of Aboriginal was handled by the early settlers in the country. He writes that Aboriginal youth, especially those in country towns commit crime more regularly as a means of expressing their frustrations towards the government’s policy on Aboriginal, either consciously or subconsciously. WEAVE has responded well to the fact that Aboriginal Youth are more likely to commit offences. They have done this not only by supervising youths placed under their watch but also by engaging Aboriginal women in their activities. One of the programs, Psychological services, offers psychiatric services to people of all ages. This program plays an essential role in that anger management is a central role in handling Aboriginal issues. According to Maher (2012), Aboriginal communities have a negative attitude towards the government because of how the matters of land and the past interactions between white settlers and Aboriginal people. Therefore, offering psychological assistance to people in the region allows them not only to handle their personal issues but also communal issues. Since much of these services are developed to cater for Aboriginal people, WEAVE tries to ensure that the psychologist posted at the organisation has Aboriginal ancestry. The motivation to commit crime among many people differs a lot. The common argument fronted in this paper as suggested by Maher (2012) is that the higher crime rate among the Aboriginal youth is a psychological issue. From this perspective, it can be argued that Aboriginal youth express their frustrations in life and the manner in which the government has handled the Aboriginal issue in terms of land, discrimination and others through offence. Aboriginal youth thus commit crime to put across a message to the government. However, there are better ways of communicating While WEAVE has been significantly successful in achieving its objectives, there are certain areas in which there is room for improvement. WEAVE should consider holding community activities such as cleaning of public places such as parks. If this avenue is utilised well, it can be used to publicize the organisation and assist it in raising funds. The organisation could also get free publicity in the media as result. With better publicity, WEAVE will be in a possession to raise additional money to finance its activities. The organisation should establish a rehabilitation centre to cater for recovering drug addicts. This facility will address the rising number of recovering drug users especially the youth. National reports have indicated that alcohol abuse and drug use among Aboriginal youth has been on the rise. The organisation should play an active role in sensitizing the youth on the problems of alcohol abuse and drug use. The rehabilitation centre will serve to support youths already using drugs and abusing alcohol and are willing to quit the habit. The centre will thus provide alternative forms of entrainment for the youth and keep them busy. The facility should be headed by a medic to cater for any withdrawal problem that the recovering addicts might experience. References Australian institute of criminology. Retrieved online from, http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/previous%20series/proceedings/1-27/~/media/publications/proceedings/21/maher.pdf Becker, S. (2008). Methods and approaches in social policy research. In P. Alcock, M. May, & K. Rowlingson (Eds.), The student’s companion to social policy (3rd ed., pp. 11-18). Melbourne: Blackwell Publishing. Blakemore, K. (2003). The subject of social policy. In Social policy: An introduction (2nd ed., pp. 1-5; 7-15). Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press Juvenile justice. Retrieved online from, http://www.aic.gov.au/crime_types/in_focus/juvenilejustice.aspx WEAVE. Retrieved online from, http://www.WEAVE.org.au/b/ Read More