Youth Justice Worker
What the work is
Supports young people in a correctional setting to improve their education and work skills, maintain family links, and assist them with integration into the community.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Assists with the implementation of education, rehabilitation and other programs to enable reintegration into the community
- Engages individuals in education and recreational activities through active participation, encouragement and mentoring
- Develops age-appropriate living and domestic skills, and helps establish healthy personal hygiene routines
- Engages with young people, conducts risk assessments, undertakes searches and monitors behaviours
- Helps develop positive family relationships, supports young people to be involved in their communities, and engages with employment services
- Understands the youth justice system, relevant legislation, processes and procedures, and establishes and maintains positive and productive working arrangements with a range of stakeholders
- Supervises detainees in transit between courts, prisons and other facilities
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a youth drop-in centre in a regional town, open after school and on weekends. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- A young person who used to sit in the corner now helps run the games night
- Someone you have supported for a year tells you about the course they have enrolled in
- The centre is loud, messy and full of kids who feel at home there
Hard days
- A young person you were making progress with stops turning up
- Setting a firm limit with someone who is already having a rough day
- Finishing a shift knowing some of the kids are going back to a hard evening
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 411732, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.