Watch House Pick-Up and Case Management Project

During 2009, the Larrakia Nation’s Intervention and Transport service, at the request of local and Territory government agencies, ran a five week pilot/trial of daily pick ups of people from the Darwin Police Watch House. These clients had been held overnight for their own safety, due to excessive intoxication, and were released without charges every morning at 6am.

Statistics collected during the trial highlighted a number of individuals (5 – 6) who were repeat clients exhibiting common life situations. Scrutiny of data collected through other program activities would suggest at least another 12 – 15 individuals who are similarly incapacitated but due to lack of mobility and avoidance of the city area, are less likely to be frequently incarcerated. We would expect these numbers to be a dramatic under-estimation of the actual numbers of people in a similar situation. 

The pilot/trial was an acknowledged success with relevant agencies and members of the public expressing a desire and commitment for the project to become an ongoing initiative, and the Watchhouse Pick-up and Case Management project has now been funded and is getting started.

In part, this project aims to disperse entrenched itinerant drinkers from the city region, thereby avoiding ease of access to multiple liquor outlets and the daily recurrence of large numbers of arrests for intoxication.

Our staff will take clients to breakfast at Mission Australia’s Sobering Up Shelter in Coconut Grove, determine if any clients require referrals to services or assistance to seek medical or other treatments as well as ensure that, if the clients have access to accommodation, they will be safely taken there.

The Watch House Pick-Up, Referral and Case Management Project complements other aspects of Larrakia Nation Service delivery very well, while providing additional and more meaningful interventions.

In particular:

• Larrakia Intervention and Transport Service (LITS)- mobile outreach service delivery including circuits of known camps and long grass sites to ensure regular contact with clients. On request, clients will be provided with referrals to other service providers and transport to meet return to country obligations. Intensive case management, with a major focus on providing housing and assisting successful tenancies is an integral part of this program.
• Healthy Engagement and Assistance in the Long Grass (HEAL) –improves the health and wellbeing of people who are living rough in Darwin's Long Grass by providing a bridge between bio-medical health services and clients as well as assisted access to specialist care. HEAL also focuses on managing the stigma and trauma associated with homelessness as well as involves clients in a range of social, cultural and environmental health projects, such as the celebrated Arts in the Grass program.
• Information and Referral Offices - located in Casuarina and Palmerston, these offices provide a hub for various service deliveries, especially the Return to Country program and Proof of Identification.
• Darwin Area Night Patrol - 7 nights a week transport service taking intoxicated people from public places to places of safety, e.g home, temporary accommodation, the sobering up shelter or, as a last resort, the Watch House.
• Tenancy Sustainability Program (TSP) – delivers a living skills program on the urban Aboriginal communities which aims to achieve successful tenancies and increase the life of the housing stock. We do this through assisting people to incorporate sound budgeting practices, environmental health and hygiene imperatives, build awareness of their rights and responsibilities as tenants and takes a whole – of – family approach to case management.

Broad Project Outline

The Larrakia Nation Watch House Pick up, Referral and Case Management Project integrates with each of these services and provides comprehensive care to some especially vulnerable clients. We aim to proactively ease clients out of dangerous and destructive lifestyles, at their own pace, through a detailed, case management model. This approach includes respite from a lifestyle which leads to excessive consumption of alcohol and other drugs.

We are devising structured and semi-structured diversionary activities which promote healthy behavior as well as developing specific case management streams for the large numbers of problem drinkers who are unlikely, in the short term, to be able to access or succeed in alcohol rehabilitation programs.

In particular, we are seeking to secure suitable premises where the majority grouping, men, can have respite in an alcohol and drug – free zone. Our research has shown that the majority of these clients exhibit most or all of the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, for which there is little or no treatment options currently available in Darwin. Developing appropriate treatment regimes, in collaboration with mental health specialists, would be an additional aspect of this program.

This project will have two permanent staff with extensive case management/social working skills. Clients will be daily picked up from the Watch House, their current needs/situations assessed, and, if not ready for uptake into this program, would be referred to varied support services. Those suitable for intake into our program will, on a case – by – case basis, be encouraged to enter into a detailed case management program, while being accommodated in a culturally appropriate manner, while they are assisted through a transformative period of lifestyle change. It is envisaged that many or most of these clients will be next referred to specialist rehabilitation programs, most of which have a minimum three month wait list. We would expect that clients entering rehab following time with this project would have dramatically enhanced prospects of successful treatment.

This project provides the pathways to participation.

It is our considered opinion that it is the one- on – one support over a lengthy period (determined by the client) that has the best chance of turning despair, hopelessness and dangerous behavior into positive, life-affirming personal practices and, hence, the ability to access the myriad employment, training and other useful economic and social activities available through the various Closing the Gap initiatives. Ultimately, it is only those individuals who have developed the resilience and the capacity to participate, will succeed.