Australasian Youth Justice Administrators

Championed by the Australasian Youth Justice Administrators (AYJA), Australasian Youth Justice Acknowledgement Day (AYJAD or Acknowledgement Day) is an opportunity to recognise and celebrate all youth justice staff and highlight the great work they do that often goes unseen and/or is misunderstood by the public.

In November 2022, AYJA committed to establishing a small focus group to progress planning and implementation tasks to launch the first Australasian Youth Justice Acknowledgement Day on 16 October 2023.  The first Acknowledgement Day was well received by staff and is now a BAU (business as usual) event across youth justice departments in Australia and New Zealand.

Acknowledgement Day is an annual event held on the second Tuesday of October.  To date, two Acknowledgement Day celebrations have been delivered – 16 October 2023 and 15 October 2024.  The third Acknowledgement Day is scheduled for Tuesday 14 October 2025.

An important part of valuing and supporting our youth justice workforce is advocating for the profession and the challenging but important work they do to deliver effective youth justice services to young people/rangatahi, their families/whānau and communities.

             

AYJAD 2023 Collage – Photos provided by South Australia, New Zealand, ACT and Victoria.

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Australasian Youth Justice Awards 

An important part of Acknowledgement Day is the presentation of the two AYJA awards. The AYJA awards are Australasian awards intended to recognise and acknowledge stand-out youth justice staff members across Australia and New Zealand. There are two awards:

• Exceptional Practice – Individual
• Exceptional Practice – Team

The Exceptional Practice Award recognises an individual or team who shines as a youth justice practitioner, leader and colleague. Has shown consistent excellent performance that has been noticed, made an invaluable contribution to youth justice that has had far-reaching positive impacts for young people, their families and communities, and applies either the AYJA Principles of Youth Justice (the Principles) or the values for Oranga Tamariki (Values) in day-to-day practice.

AYJAD 2023 Australasian Award Nominees and Winners – Photo by Cameron Grant Parenthesy @parenthesy