Webinars - ACEA

Australasian Corrections Education Association (ACEA) provides a forum for educators working in adult and youth corrections facilities to exchange ideas and insights into effective education and training programs and services for those in custody.

ACEA is delighted to work with the University of Canterbury to share the wealth of knowledge and experience from practitioners, policymakers and corrections education management across the world with you.

I look forward to receiving reflections on your learning from each of these webinars.

Dr Helen Farley

President
Australasian Corrections Education Association

July 2024

Insights for Prison Educators: Lessons from Lived Experience

This webinar promises to be enlightening for prison educators and advocates. Bringing together former students with lived experience, the event aims to share invaluable insights on effective teaching strategies within prisons and correctional facilities. Attendees can look forward to a series of discussions highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities in prison education. The speakers, drawing from their personal journeys, will highlight the importance of empathy, adaptability, and innovative approaches in fostering an engaging learning environment. This event will offer practical tips and tricks for educators while emphasising the transformative power of education in the rehabilitation and personal growth of people in prison.

Dwayne Antojado is a lived experience criminologist and academic with lived experience of the criminal justice system in Australia. Dwayne is a postgraduate criminology student in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, and holds sessional academic appointments at various universities in Australia. He is also a Senior Writer for Paper Chained Magazine, a journal of artistic expression from individuals affected by incarceration. His research interests include LGBTQIA+ experiences in the justice system, Lived Experience Criminology, education in prisons, and prison radio. Dwayne presently has two upcoming books one with Matthew Maycock (Monash University) and Danica Darley (University of Sheffield), published by Routledge; and another monograph, published by Palgrave Macmillan, both on the topic of ‘lived experience’ in criminal justice and criminology.

Tina McPhee is a PhD candidate and teaching fellow in the faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales and the Lived Experience Advocacy Coordinator at Justice Reform Initiative. Tina’s autoethnographical research focusses on the collateral consequences of conviction and how they are experienced as civil death.

Tahlia Isaac is a Kamilaroi woman who holds a Bachelor of Business and Post Grad in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Her lived experience of 10 years living with substance use disorder and subsequently imprisonment serves as the catalyst for her work. Her organisation Strong Empowered Living Free advocates for systems change to end the incarceration of women and removing barriers to reentry through delivering a reentry program specifically designed from lived experience.

Phillip Jenkins brings a deeply personal and informed perspective on prisons in New South Wales. Having spent six of the last eleven years incarcerated where educational opportunities were limited to the point of not existing, Phillip wishes to transform these challenges into commitments that can improve the prison system. Currently an undergraduate at UNSW studying Criminology and Criminal Justice, Phillip aims to leverage his academic pursuits to advocate for systemic change. As a neurodiverse individual, Phillip recently hosted the launch of report ‘Cruel Inhuman and Degrading Treatment of People with Disability in Detention’, organised by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. As a continuation of this report, Phillip, together with Churchill fellow Patrick McGee, will begin designing and collaborations on a ‘national report card’ for people with disability in detention. Phillip’s unique insights will be further utilised as he joins the advisory board at UNSW for the Bachelor of Criminology program, representing those with lived experience. His dedication to reform and empowerment through sharing his experiences is an invaluable asset to any team. Hoping to complete a PhD, he hopes to contribute to how education is delivered, and to meet the specific needs of individuals so they are afforded the same opportunities and agency when mapping their way through incarceration and return to community.

March 2024

Sport and Youth Justice. Opportunities, Challenges, and a Collaborative Vision Forward by Kalyn McDonough

A strong body of literature exists on the potential of sport programs to contribute to broad health, social, and economic benefits, as well as having implications for positive youth development. Acknowledging this opportunity, sport is being recognized as a promising program gaining popularity within youth justice systems around the world. Yet, there continues to be variance in program quality and legitimate barriers to implementation, which contribute to an inequity in access across systems- and potentially a missed opportunity to connect with young people. The presentation will provide an overview of the existing literature on sport and youth justice, reflections from a Fulbright experience studying sport within the Australian youth justice system, and facilitate a conversation with participants in order to gain key insights to build a collaborative vision forward.

Speaker biography: Kalyn McDonough, PhD, MSW was a Fulbright Future Scholar ’22-’23 Australia, Visiting Scholar, at the University of Melbourne and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Center for Sport Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University in the United States. Her research interests focus on sport for social justice and youth sport, particularly among young people involved in justice systems. The majority of her research is applied in nature and conducted with and informed by communities of practice and young people. Before her time in Australia, she was the co-head coach of a boys’ lacrosse team in a juvenile correctional facility, and currently runs a sport-based university-community partnership with Virginia’s Department of Juvenile Justice’s Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Facility.

February 2024

Innovative Solutions in Correctional Education and Employment: The Western Australian Mode by Dr Fiona McGregor

Western Australia is, geographically, the single largest corrective services jurisdiction in the world. As such, it presents multiple challenges for the delivery of education, employment, and transitional services to a prisoner population spread throughout 17 prisons (and 1 privately run prison) and additional 7 work camps across 2.5 million square kilometers. Despite this, in the last 30 years, there has been considerable innovation in multiple areas of delivery. This webinar describes the Western Australian model of delivery, through its Education, Employment and Transitional Services (EETS) division, outlining the pathways for prisoner learners from assessment through to its national award-winning traineeships program and other new initiatives such as the Entry to General Education curriculum now owned by the Department of Justice WA’s own RTO, ASETS and the Prisoner Employment Program (PEP). This webinar also describes our partnerships with employers and tertiary providers to enable wider access to education, training, and employment pathways for people in custody.

July 2023

Effective Responses to Youth Gangs in Youth Detention Centres

Kate Bjur has travelled around the world visiting youth detention centres, prisons and other secure settings for young people, as part of a Churchill Fellowship project. She has investigated effective responses to youth gangs and models of secure care that have been shown to reduce recidivism. Kate has worked with young people for over 25 years in youth detention, restorative justice, family work, policy and advocacy roles in government and the non-government sector. Kate is Assistant Director at the West Moreton Youth Detention Centre in Wacol, leading a multi-disciplinary team that includes casework, psychology, programs, restorative practice, cultural support, court, visits and intelligence teams. Kate’s presentation focusses on youth gangs – preventing gang involvement, managing young people in gangs while in youth detention, and supporting young people to exit from gangs. Kate also speaks about models of youth detention that have been proven to reduce reoffending.