Engaging ‘lost’ teenagers

by Pamela Nathan

Re: ‘Youth missing from system, says Mundine’, by Patrica Karvelas, published in  The Weekend Australian, 15-16 February 2014.

Interesting, Warren Mundine notes that up to 40,000 young Aboriginal adults are ‘missing’ from the welfare system, not claiming the dole which in turn can lead to crime and ‘humbugging”. So it seems not All Aboriginal people live out the stereotype of living on sit down money or welfare!!

Mundine calls for Indigenous Affairs bureaucrats to develop interventions to engage lost teenagers. I know of some Aboriginal communities that are attempting to engage their youth in a variety of different programs and processes and maybe they can receive long-term funding to develop on-going interventions where family and community members are all engaged in saving the lost teenagers and preventing truancy, violence and suicide.