Intensive case management

Each young person in the program is assigned a dedicated intensive case manager who works closely with them and their family to develop a tailored plan to address their specific needs. By working with a smaller number of young people, intensive case managers can dedicate more time to address the underlying issues that contribute to offending. The case manager provides ongoing support, coordination, and advocacy to ensure that the young person and family has access to appropriate services and interventions. A case manager also actively works with parents and carers to improve family relationships and wellbeing for safe and supportive family households.

The program is delivered through intensive weekly contact sessions:

• Every young person is paired with a trained ICM support worker to provide mentoring, support and assistance for up to 2 sessions per week.
• Family sessions occur up to twice per week and are based on the Collaborative Family Work and Strengthening Families Protective Factors framework.
• A minimum of 2 sessions per week occur with ICM case managers who utilise motivational interviewing and other cognitive behavioural techniques to provide individual therapeutic intervention that targets the offence cognitions with an emphasis on skill building and enhancing capacity.

ICM may connect young people and their families to non-government agencies to provide counselling and therapeutic support to address the underlying factors contributing to the young person's offending behaviour, such as mental health issues, trauma, or substance abuse. This can involve individual counselling, family therapy, group therapy, or other interventions.

ICM is based on the understanding that a young person has a better chance of not reoffending if they can draw on support from a functional family environment.

Through weekly family sessions, the program works to:

• support families to identify and achieve their goals
• build positive familial relationships, trust, confidence, and leadership
• build capacity and parental resilience to enhance support for their children
• develop positive relationships with government and non-government agencies
• increase family strengths, enhance child development and reduce the likelihood of family conflict.

As a result of being exposed to similar risk factors, siblings are often also involved with the court system, Youth Justice, or at risk of pursuing a similar offending trajectory. ICM enables positive outcomes for the young person and improved family functioning to better support the siblings in the form of early intervention.

The program may assist young people in accessing education, training, and employment opportunities to improve their long-term prospects and reduce their risk of reoffending. This can include support with school attendance, vocational training, job readiness skills and job placement assistance. ICM can also support parents to achieve their employment and vocational goals.

The program may connect young people and their families to other relevant support services, such as housing support, health services, drug and alcohol services, and legal support, to address their broader needs and reduce their risk of reoffending.

A recent evaluation showed that the ICM program is more effective at reducing reoffending than any other alternative Youth Justice support options.

From 6 months pre-program to 6 months post-program, ICM saw an average 51% reduction in the frequency of offending. The program also saw a 72% in the proportion of 'crimes against the person' which includes common assault, breaking and entering, theft and armed robbery.

These offending outcomes were consistent across cohorts including age, gender, and First Nations status. This indicates that ICM can have a sustained positive impact on a young person's frequency and severity of offending and can also present an opportunity to reduce First Nations overrepresentation within youth justice.

The program helps young people and their families navigate government systems and services. Through an intensive and integrated support model, ICM enables case workers to strategically coordinate services to interact with young people and their families when appropriate.

Reducing the frequency and severity of offending behaviours is key for the ICM program. Studies show that when you work with the whole family, instead of just focusing on the young person, it increases positive behaviour and reduces offending. It also provides an opportunity for early intervention with siblings and can prevent siblings from getting into trouble and keep them away from the youth justice system.

The ICM program creates improvements in important protective factors such as family circumstances, education and employment. Results of the recent independent evaluation indicate that the improved reoffending outcomes through the ICM program y may be primarily achieved through changing risk factors such as family circumstances, education and employment into protective factors.