A Maori or Pasifika young person in Victoria’s criminal justice system might come across Jes Wikaira. She’s a cultural and intensive support worker on a program called the Youth Justice Community Support Service, which helps young people reset their lives and connect with the support they need after being in contact with the law.

Jes works with and advocates for young people who come from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. That’s important, because they make up around forty per cent of the people in Victoria’s justice system – a disproportionate rate, which is due to complex and overlapping factors, including the continuing impacts of colonisation, entrenched disadvantage, and disconnection from vital support.

Here, Jes talks about the culturally safe support she provides to a whole family – not just an individual, in recognition of how Maori families like her own are comprised and understood – and the misconceptions about the people she works alongside that she’d like the wider community to extinguish, to make everyone feel more safe and welcome.

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