Information Clearinghouse Category: Report

As you know, 2025 started with significant change for vulnerable children in the Northern Territory.

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC) has responsibility for promoting, informing and advocating on matters affecting the rights, interests and wellbeing of vulnerable children.

This includes sharing information, reports and data on the experiences and needs of children and young people in contact with or at risk of entry into child protection and the youth justice systems.

One way of doing this is through the publication of OCC Explainers about issues through the Territory context, reflect best practice and the evidence of what works to meet the needs of vulnerable children and young people in contact with these systems.

In light of recent reforms to the youth justice system and increased attention on youth offending, we have attached the first of our Explainer documents – Youth Diversion – for you today.

In 2025, the OCC will be hosting a series of Webinars on key OCC Explainers which bring together experts to discuss current issues, explain what works and showcase good practice.

For more information about these Webinars and how you might be involved, please contact the Strategy & Rights team.

• A/Manager – Clare Patterson –  Clare.Patterson@nt.gov.au
• Strategy, Rights and Advice Officer – Rekisha Satour – rekisha.satour@nt.gov.au

You can find more information about the role of the Children’s Commissioner, the work of the Office and evidence based research on our website occ.nt.gov.au.

 The Theory of Change was developed to guide the next years of the Youth Voice Project. It outlines four key objectives for the project and looking at these through a theory of change model it determines drivers and barriers to the changes that the project wants to make. The work came from 3 workshops conducted in 2022 by Dr Chay Brown. These workshops included young people, youth workers, those working in the youth sector and government.