The Bridge Youth Service made a commitment 10 years ago to focus on ensuring our services were culturally safe for young people from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities. I am proud to be leading the next step in this commitment through the development of this RAP.

As the CEO of The Bridge Youth Service, I recognise the current over representation of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people in child protection and the justice system as well as those who are affected by chronic health conditions, family violence and homelessness. Over the last 10 years we are proud that young people have come to us for this support. We want to ensure this continues and that our open door is inviting, comforting and culturally safe for those who haven’t walked through it yet.

We can do more to ensure this happens. Through our staff training, our community engagement efforts and our partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander specialist services, we commit to building our understanding of the intersectionality in this over representation.

Locally this means we want to demonstrate our allyship, that we are making time to improve our systems and that we want to do this in partnership with the local community.

We want to capitalise on the optimism of youth, the leaders of the future, the young parents we assist. The voice of young people is important to us. We want the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth to be prioritised and entrusted with us to assist in the healing and change that needs to occur.

Melinda Lawley 

CEO