The Churchill Trust Board met on 30 April and 1 May 2025 in Canberra, the first Board meeting with new Board Chair and Churchill Fellow Richard Roylance. As part of the meeting, Board and staff members were privileged to listen to two Churchill Fellows, Kate Bjur and Jennifer Bowles.
Churchill Trust CEO, Christine Dacey, said, “The work Kate and Jennifer had done to progress and improve the lives of troubled young people and their families was to be commended. These issues are some of the hardest we face as a community. Kate and Jennifer approach it with care and compassion.”
Churchill Fellow Kate Bjur shared insights from her international research, drawing on her report into best-practice responses to youth gang involvement in detention. Her Fellowship, which spanned the UK, US, Spain, Canada and Denmark, focused on prevention, in-custody management, and effective exit strategies. Kate was also a recent 2023-24 Policy Impact Program Churchill Fellow.
“Young people involved in gangs are eight times more likely to join adult gangs,” Kate noted, highlighting the urgency of early intervention. She emphasised the importance of community-based policing, positive youth engagement, and therapeutic support to address the social conditions driving gang affiliation.
Kate’s recommendations include the introduction of gang exit programs, a shift to rehabilitation-focused detention models, and efforts to reduce stigma around youth crime.
Her research draws on successful international models, including Spain’s Diagrama and the Missouri Model, demonstrating significantly lower recidivism rates.
“Opportunities for young people to fail safely, learn, and be supported in recovery were consistent across all successful models,” she said. The report encourages policymakers to adopt more therapeutic, community-engaged approaches to reduce youth violence and reoffending.
Reserve Magistrate and Churchill Fellow (2014) Jennifer Bowles addressed the board on the findings of her Fellowship, which explored residential therapeutic treatment options for young people facing substance abuse and mental illness. 83% of those in detention have offended under the influence of alcohol or illicit substances. She wanted to ascertain if mandated treatment for substance use could be effective. Jennifer was a 2020-21 Policy Impact Program Churchill Fellow.
During visits to Sweden, the UK, and New Zealand, she found that the outcomes of jurisdictions offering young people mandated therapeutic interventions through the courts could be as effective as voluntary treatment programs, provided certain critical elements were present. “Despite their best endeavours, the current voluntary system is not working for many of our most troubled children and young people, who are not engaging in any treatment”, she said. “They are amongst the most vulnerable in our society.”
Jennifer reflected on this, retelling the story of Greg (not his real name), a 17-year-old boy with dependence on alcohol and cannabis who had appeared in her court one day. Greg’s mother asked, “What can you do? I am watching my son die before my eyes.”
As his life was spiralling downwards and it reached its lowest ebb, he was remanded in custody. He wrote:
I pray for a Saviour to help me conquer my compulsive behaviour
Which keeps leading me into trouble and life threatening danger
I feel weighed down and burdened with responsibility
Having to work on getting better and back to normality.
It seems like it’s all too much, after years of such fuss
I’m prepared to give up and declare that I’ve had enough
If I am to die, please keep in mind that I did try
Tears come to my eyes, at times I’ve contemplated suicide.
Her report recommends empowering the Children’s Court of Victoria to make Youth Therapeutic Orders, enabling young people who have not engaged voluntarily to receive treatment. By drawing on examples like Glebe House in Cambridge and Youth Odyssey in Auckland, Jennifer observed that trust, consistency, and community-style therapeutic environments support genuine behavioural change. Her work was further amplified through the Churchill Trust–UQ Policy Impact Program, which is designed to bring research into public policy debate.
“The proposed orders provide a health response with the ultimate objective being for the young person to receive expert treatment to deal with the underlying causes of their substance use. An opportunity for early intervention is currently being lost. For the sake of our vulnerable children and young people, we should never give up. We must stop the pipeline of young people ‘graduating’ to adult imprisonment,” she said.
The Board met on the final day of the 2025 application period and is excited to receive the full list of submissions. Over the coming months, the Board and volunteers from across the country will shortlist candidates and serve on selection panels to help determine the 2025 Churchill Fellowship cohort.
