The Framework

The Olabud Doogethu project aims to engage local families and communities to provide the support and the environment for their young people to thrive and experience meaningful and fulfilling lives. It seeks to focus on actions that simultaneously build local community cohesion, capacity, leadership and infrastructure; tackle Indigenous disadvantage; and create local justice support opportunities that focus on diversion, rehabilitation and community based early intervention to create safer communities. 

“I’d like to see peace right through the whole town of Halls Creek. I’d rather see those kids at school, I’d rather see those young men go to high school or boarding school where they could learn the lifestyle, you know? They think that everything might be the same, but it’s not. For the next generation, if we can set a good role model for them, they’ll follow you. We need to be that role model.”       Rosemary Stretch, Shire of Halls Creek Councillor

The project has identified six outcomes, all considered essential to creating stronger communities; more resilient families and young people within the Halls Creek Shire and to dramatically reduce the number of local young people engaged in the criminal justice system; namely – 

  1. Localising solutions and opportunities that address the underlying causes of offending and other social and employment challenges.
  2. Strengthening local communities and neighbourhoods through enhancing safety, local infrastructure and greater sense of community belonging, involvement, connection, trust, inclusion and mutual responsibility.
  3. Supporting families and young people by addressing the underlying issues that contribute to crime and socially dysfunctional behaviours and creating pathways that enable young people to experience healthy, happy and prosperous futures.
  4. Improving the justice footprint through creating smarter diversionary options that prioritise connections to country, cultural identities, Kimberley family networks and local community assets and networks.
  5. Building community capacity through creating culturally relevant participation and development opportunities where local people’s unique strengths, capacities and contributions are respected, enhanced and utilised as a means to change, resilience, connection, safety and local leadership.
  6. Developing collaborative actions that activate stronger partnerships, coordinated approaches, networking and integrated program delivery among local and regional groups and agencies committed to community building in Shire of Halls Creek communities.