The posting of PeakCare’s recently released blog, Youth justice ‘crack down’: It takes a village has elicited an incredibly strong response on our Facebook page. While there are a few comments that reflect very different views to those held by PeakCare, they are far outweighed by over 1,100 ‘likes’ and around 300 ‘shares’ – an outstanding response and one that is continuing to grow.
This strong response suggests that there are many Queenslanders (and people from elsewhere) who welcome and engage in nuanced discussion about complex social issues. They are people who think beyond and expect more than ‘quick fix’ remedies and, in considering the issues, draw on both their compassion and intellect. They are to be applauded for these qualities.
As flagged within the blog, PeakCare is concerned about some emerging commentary that points a finger of blame at the child protection system for alleged youth justice ‘problems’. Our concern is that whatever understandings PeakCare and our Members may have about shortfalls within the child protection system and ways in which they can be constructively addressed, it’s likely that these understandings will differ markedly from the understandings held by some others about the ‘failures’ of child protection and the means for their correction.. Now is not the time to be simplistically looking for scapegoats or using ‘throw-away’ lines to attribute blame in ways that can be easily misconstrued.
Read more to find out about PeakCare’s call for a cohesive and integrated social policy platform within which both child protection and youth justice policies should be located.