The persistent over-representation of multicultural cohorts in Youth Justice demonstrates the need to build on and adapt the existing suite of interventions offered to ensure that they address the complex social, cultural and historical challenges that make some multicultural young people more vulnerable to Youth Justice contact.

Youth Justice has funded Professor Shepherd and his team to conduct an evaluation of all programs funded through the Youth Justice multicultural lived experience program grant.

The funding is provided to evaluate Youth Justice multicultural lived-experience program suite to analyse the effectiveness of the novel, lived-experience approaches of the programs. This will build the evidence base in Victoria about the effectiveness of novel community-led approaches utilising lived experience to support young people in Youth Justice. The evaluation will measure improved pro-social identity and improved connection to community and culture in participants of funded programs.

• Analysing the effectiveness of novel, lived-experience approaches in the program.
• Building Evidence in Victoria about the success of community-led approaches that utilise lived experience.
• Measuring improvements in pro-social identity and connection to community and culture among participants.

Project Start Date: 15/10/2024

Project Finish Date: 30/06/2027

Project Funding: Department of Justice ($378,553)