Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2016 the Armadale Youth Intervention Partnership was established by the Youth Partnership Project to demonstrate how a targeted, collaborative, place based approach with purposely resourced backbone leadership can better support outcomes for young people with complex needs in our area. It is an early-intervention model which aims to act as an interface between the youth justice system and the community to prevent the need for tertiary engagement. AYIP, through the City of Armadale and Save the Children, runs an intensive school holiday program for at-risk kids, which is focused on teamwork, respect, understanding one another and building resilience. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to join youth leader Jamie Barr, his team from Save the Children and a group of young participants from my electorate during their summer holiday program for a day where we kayaked to Penguin Island. It was great to see the kids learning, working effectively together and interacting with the natural environment, all whilst having a lot of fun, as well as building trust and rapport with the youth leaders. I often spend time meeting with and supporting the leadership of our community organisations and was proud to host the YPP manager, Karina, at a meeting of Labor's crime and justice task force here last year, but getting frontline experience of these programs, like spending a day with them, is also rewarding and highly educational as a local MP. These sorts of programs are really important to our community and are critical to how we together can change the story.