NAAJA has a 50-year history of serving Aboriginal Territorians as they navigate the justice system.

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At this year’s Reintegration Puzzle Conference in Tarndanya (Adelaide), the NAAJA Mental Health team presented on the way they walk alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are navigating the justice system.

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They told people what they already knew: that the system as it exists is broken.

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But they gave practical examples of how they work within it to help strive for change.

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Made up of Mental Health Social Worker Danica and Aboriginal Health Worker Rob, the team make up the tiny, but mighty, mental health team at NAAJA.

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“Our work is deeply committed to addressing the high rates of reincarceration and supporting Aboriginal people in a system that often seeks to silence them,” Danica said.

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“We both hold a belief in the power of small changes to make lasting impacts and argue for more empathy, and more courage in frontline workers to advocate fiercely for those navigating complex and unjust systems.”

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“When a person leaves prison, they are left to navigate the silos and individual systems alone with no supports bridging the gaps.”

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Danica and Rob provide the link between alcohol and other drug services, housing, corrections, community mental health, Centrelink and community programs.

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These programs often have limited soft referral pathways and leave no room for people to build trusting relationships.

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“We acknowledge this is particularly challenging for Aboriginal Mob who have been mistreated by services and systems all of their life and need connections to be able to engage in a meaningful way,” Rob said.

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Danica said that here in the NT, there is no co-ordination or accountability built between these services, which leads to people falling between the gaps.

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“The repercussions of this when there is a legal system involved, are incredibly high and all the responsibility is placed onto the people navigating this,” she said.

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The pair work collaboratively to provide this support to Aboriginal people navigating these gaps.

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“We aim to walk alongside the person and advocate, challenge and care as they move through these systems,” Danica and Rob said in the presentation.

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“We aim to meet people where they are at and work to centre the person and link the services.

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“We do this by focusing on building rapport as the first step. We try to understand what is going on for them outside of the legal system. When you meet someone in the cells, it is often at one of their lowest points – we want to show people they are not defined by this. We provide different levels of support – understanding that sometimes getting someone a feed and a smoke is just as important as anything else.”

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“Our model is based on relationship-based practice – meaning we focus on trust, empathy, respect, collaboration and genuine human connection.

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“Where we have found the most change over our work across two years has been with the people we walk alongside through multiple systems across a period of time. By focusing on the quality of the relationship, we try to change the narrative that is too often embedded in the system – that people are ‘too difficult’, ‘too complex’, and don’t fit the mold.

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“We aim to challenge these narratives and show the people we work with that it is not them that is broken, it is the system. We have demonstrated that with relationships, people want to engage in their legal proceedings, they want to engage in their treatment but want to feel safe and supported to do so.”

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To do this, you need to be flexible and you need to be creative. Too often, services in the Northern Territory stick to their silos, which doesn’t allow for people that don’t fit neatly into the “one problem box”.

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Feedback from the people the team works with shows that this kind of support is what makes a difference.

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“If we want better outcomes for people, we must break down these silos through shared information and coordinated care. We need services that flow and invest in people,” they said.

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They also shared some feedback from clients:

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“You mob kept coming back for me.”

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“Over time I realised, these guys got my back.”

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“The biggest difference was that I felt respected.”

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“It does not take much to give people the dignity they deserve. While we do not claim to have all the answers, we hope to demonstrate the urgent need for change (and care) in both system failures and professional attitudes,” they said.

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“We know this is the way forward.”