Aaron Hendry: Kickback co-founder and youth worker on the Government's boot camp program for youth offenders

There’s concern youth offending boot camps don't cater to the issues impacting children the most. 

Newstalk ZB understands the programme for young offenders is starting in Palmerston North on Monday, for 10 youths.  

They'll spend more time in the residential facility than in the pilot, and this iteration will have more input from local iwi. 

Kickback co-founder and youth worker Aaron Hendry told Ryan Bridge these are kids who are often struggling in poverty and homelessness themselves. 

He says parents don't have the adequate support to help children get through tough issues. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Boot camps are back for young offenders. This is the
second pilot, starting Monday, ten teenagers. Last time, six of
the ten participants reoffended while they were on the program.
One of them died in a car accident sadly.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
A review acknowledged the extent of the reoffending, but also
noted the seriousness and the frequency of the offending had
reduced for those in the pilot when compared to a
control group. Aaron Hendry is youth development worker and Kickback
co founder with me this morning. Hey Aaron, Hey sure,
I man, good, thank you. So. Look, it's not perfect,

(00:35):
but none of these things are, but it sounds like
there might be a glimmer of hope there.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Look, I think if we stood back and loot of
the evidence and expertise around, you know what really works
for kids, we wouldn't be we wouldn't be going ahead
with another boot camp. Basically, essentially, what we're trying to
do is make an already flawed child prison system work.
We're putting millions of dollars into this project for a
very small cohort of young people. At the same time,

(01:01):
we're pulling the resources out of the community that are
essentially needed to prevent children from needed to come into
the justice system in the first place.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Where are the resources being pulled from these millions?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Look, look, what we're seeing, at least in the community
is a real lack of access to housing. There's a
real lack of you know, intensive support for FINO for children,
and the kickback the kids that keep back serves that
these are the kids that are on their pathway to
the justice system, right These are children that are experiencing homelessness,
that are sleeping rough you know, the youngest wood men

(01:33):
is nine, starting to steal to survive, starting to get
into really like dangerous situations and doing some pretty dangerous stuff. Right.
There is not the resources in the community right now
to adequately respond to those children with the speed that
they need that response. And that has gotten a lot
harder over the last couple of years. And so what
our government should be doing and have been advised to do,

(01:54):
is start to really invest in our community so we
can do that early intervention really really well. And where
is that where there is a need for you know,
a far more intensive reproound support that that is done
within local communities, within final environments, and we provide the
support both to Fino and to Tamaitiki and Tonga. Right,
one of the concerning things I think we have around
the extend of the second boot camp, right, so we've

(02:16):
we've extended it now so three months to six months.
That's going to be resource intensive. But what we know
is where the boot camp has failed is in the transition.
So the government knew this coming into it, where they
struggle as a transition. Now that that's that's the resources
around housing support, addressing poverty, addressing what's going with a
final home, access to disability support, final support, all those
sort of things. That investment supports early intervention and it

(02:38):
supports transition, but we aren't seeing a real significant increase
in the resources to go into that transition. We always
know that in a real secure environment like the you know,
like the boot camps, like other child prison models, you're
going to reduce advanisure in that short period of time
while they're in they're in the care.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
You mentioned a nine year old that you're looking after
that's stealing to survive or about to stay stealing to survive.
What's where's why is where is the nine year old living?
And why aren't they getting money?

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah. Yeah, So we meet, we meet a range of children. Right,
so we had you know, almost twenty percent of the
children that we met over the young people we serve
over last year, we're under fifteen, right, So these are
kids that they're FINO often really struggling in poverty, housing
and security, homelessness themselves. You know, many of the children

(03:28):
that we see coming through our doors that are in
those situations have some form of disability, form of disability.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, this nine year old, I mean, it's quite a
shocking example. You've raised this nine year old. So where's
mum and dad? Where are they living?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah? Yeah, Look, I won't speak about like very specific circumstances,
but what I'll say in terms of the context of
the children that we about the context of the children
that we meet, including you know, kids as young as
there is that that often the FINO themselves are in
politic they're often experiencing homestide, and the many many times
the talking and the families that we're talking about really

(04:10):
love their kids and are trying to do the best
they can to support them. But the real comp six
stuff happening for those children, and the support for the
final who just is not there and know I said before,
you know that they're consume around faced and other disabilities.
Some parents are just really struggling to understand how can
we support our child with all the stuff that they've
gone through and they don't have the adequate support something

(04:31):
from the children we're talking about right now, Yeah, looking
like needing life long support and those resources aren't in
place for them.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
I've got to live there, Aaron, We've got to run.
Aaron Hendri, youth development worker. Kickback co founded for more
from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to news
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