Page 8 - March 31

Guest Speaker

At our last meeting, Dimitra (Dimi) Lattas
gave a very interesting and informative
presentation about nipping crime in the bud.
Dimi is a social work lecturer at the
University of the Sunshine Coast and
Moreton Bay campuses.

In 2024, Dimi won the AASW National
Social Work Researcher of the Year and the
United States National Organisation of
Forensic Social Work's Albert Roberts
Scholarship. Dimi is the 2025-2026 Fulbright
Queensland Scholar; she will be going to
Tennessee later this year to explore
workforce practitioner capacity-building and
educational practices that support youth
engaged in the criminal justice system.

In her presentation, Dimi explained how
media in particular social media was creating
an adversarial narrative about youth crime
and was giving the impression that youth
crime was on the rise when in fact, this is not
the case - it's on the decline. Sadly, though,
what has risen is the complex repeat
offenders reoffending with this likelihood being at 70-90%.

There is some work being done on divergent strategies which works for low-risk offenders
but this doesn't work for these complex cases. They are considered complex because they
have a fair number of risk factors such as abuse, incarcerated parents, parents with drug &
alcohol abuse issues or anything that creates an unsafe environment which has caused them
to suffer from trauma. It is this trauma which has inhibited their development and created
chronic stress which results in 'hyper nervous system arousal'. This arousal can be triggered
(similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) often resulting in undesired reactions and
behaviours. As such, these youths are substantially disadvantaged and in need of support
which is currently unavailable or largely inadequate. Early intervention would go a long way
to helping these young people but there are few programs available or suitably trained
professionals, at present.

Dimi's main focus is to educate social workers has to how to deal with these complex cases
something she is going to do further study on, in her year in Tennessee. Not a very uplifting
topic but one that needed to be told. We wish her all the best in her studies, and it would be
interesting to have her back again to hear what she has learnt.
Pam Purvis