Australia entered the COVID-19 pandemic with a youth (15 to 24-year-old) unemployment rate of 11.6% in December 2019, three times higher than the 25 to 64-year-old unemployment rate of 3.6%. The strategies taken by governments to minimise the spread of COVID-19 have had widespread economic impacts. By July 2020, youth unemployment had risen to…

In this article we reflect on developments in our thinking and practice concerning youth sexual offending. We put the case that context is critical to understanding and responding to the problem, and accordingly that a social ecological model provides the most suitable conceptual and practice framework for clinical efforts with this population. We…

There was a time when leaving school marked the beginning of adulthood. Even though this transition has now lengthened, the traditional markers of a successful transition remain the same: getting a good job, becoming a responsible citizen, establishing a household and having a family. Being either in full-time education or work, or a combination…

One of the greatest challenges for the juvenile justice system is to successfully reintegrate young offenders back to their communities so that they do not re-offend and return to detention. This challenge is even greater for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth who are over-represented in the Queensland juvenile justice system in…

Youth transitions refer to young people's journeys from school to post-school study and on to employment. This is a time when young people experience rapid biological, psychological and physical changes, as well as changing social and economic situations, as they begin to take on the responsibilities of adulthood. In this paper, the authors first…

This paper and the four commissioned works on which it is based are guided by the important question: How can we start valuing practices and outcomes of teaching and learning that are difficult to reduce to numbers? As the process of developing indicators for the Post-2015 education targets unfolds, some of the targets are at risk of being dropped…

The National Partnership Agreement for Indigenous Early Childhood Development (COAG 2008a) aims to halve the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under five within a decade, halve the gap for Indigenous students in reading, writing and numeracy within a decade, and ensure all Indigenous 4-year-olds have access to quality early childhood…

We believe that the Australian early childhood sector is not performing well. The incidence of poor outcomes for children is increasing, and we believe that current service delivery is not capable of addressing this. We argue that, as a sector, there is an abundance of evidence of the kinds of programs and initiatives that could address our…

This paper outlines early findings from the Tasmanian-based Social Norms Analysis Project (SNAP). The Social Norms model is presented as a theoretically informed, evidence-based model for reducing alcohol-related harm in youthful populations by utilising the complex and often positive contributions peer groups make to adolescent health and…

Discursive psychology was used as a means of increasing our understanding of the way young people may talk about volume of consumption in relation to their drinking behaviour. Analysis of the audio recording and transcript of a pilot focus group discussion with four young people revealed that participants employed varying constructions of volume…

The promotion of suicide and description of suicide methods on the Internet have led to widespread concern that legal control is mandated. Apart from value concerns pertaining to attitudes about suicide, the guarantee of freedom of expression presents a serious challenge to the introduction of restrictive laws. Recent developments in Australia and…

Twenty young people with a history of incarceration, substance abuse and disconnection provided Whitelion with insight into "what worked" in changing their at-risk behaviours. The answer was obvious--state support beyond 18 years of age, perhaps until the mid-twenties. These young people require specialised intervention, and help…

In Australia, there is a growing expectation that sexuality education should reduce the risks associated with youth sex by providing young people with information on protecting their sexual health. However, this information may be insufficient to ensure that young people make choices that support their sexual safety and autonomy. This paper…

This paper explores how "equity" and "risk" can call into question the ecology of a school. It suggests that failing to follow a holistic approach to a school problem can produce solutions that fail the students the effort was intended to assist. Examining schooling as a process of social production and reproduction leads to…

This paper describes the findings from a two-year research project which investigated ways to support culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) families with very young children accessing child care services. The families resided in low income areas and were deemed to be at risk of social isolation and related problems. The research findings…