The Diagrama centres provide young people will social emotional wellbeing support, assessment and development. Children receive an average of 30 hours a week of school and are also encouraged to achieve additional qualifications, as well as participating in sports, activities and community service. There is also a strong focus on rewarding good behaviours with earned privileges and responsibilities. Staff are highly qualified (educators, social workers, psychologists and teachers), but the service costs are significantly lower than our centres in the NT because staffing ratios are much lower.

Central to Diagrama model, as well as other international examples that have been proven to work (the MissouriModel in the United States, and New Zealand ‘residences’), is the recognition that we get the best outcomes for young people when their families are meaningfully involved in their rehabilitation.International best practice demonstrates that building large centralised detention centres, far from young peoples families and communities, is planning for failure.

The evidence shows that small, regionally based secure facilities (closer to family and community) achieve the best outcomes for young people, their families and the community. In my opinion, we should halt the plans to construct large, expensive, new detention centres is Darwin and Alice Springs and look closely at the evidence of what works internationally.