Snr Const Nadine Skene was sitting at her desk at a suburban Melbourne police station when she first noticed the pattern. Girls as young as 10 were going missing. Then returning home. Then going missing again. Several had repeated the process more than 50 times within a single year.
Some were couch-surfing, sleeping on the beach or in public toilets. Others were connecting with men on social media. Almost all had some form of contact with the criminal justice system in their time away from home, either as victims or offenders.
“Many would be sexually exploited, others would be offending or in the company of people who were offending,” Skene says. “It was a real concern.”
She contacted Lisa Abbott, a former alcohol and drug worker who had turned her focus to vulnerable girls and young women in the Frankston area and wider Mornington Peninsula.
“We’re talking about 10, 11, 12-year-olds,” Abbott says. “They’d get picked up, taken back home, or in some cases to residential care, and then they’d go missing again.
“We thought, ‘let’s see if we can develop a response to this issue’. We know what works – there’s a lot of research and evidence around early intervention. Let’s see if we can guide them down a different path.”
With a $500,000 grant from the Victorian Legal Services Board, Abbott set up a project called Living Free in late 2017.
Run out of the non-for-profit TaskForce Community Agency in Frankston, the project has had such a profound effect on the young women involved that it has led to calls to expand it across the state, including by the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association along with a former participant who now works for the service.
“They were the perfect amount of assertive and empowering and truthful,” Lyanne Morel, now 27, says of the Living Free team. “They honestly saved my life.”
Breaking the cycle before it starts
Abbott says it is hard to explain what Living Free does because it’s “a bit of everything”.
They provide alcohol and drug support, coordinate services, help young women secure housing or get their learner driver permit and they run group-based activities.
“Basically, we play the role of the advocate for the young girl,” Abbott says.
“If they’re repeatedly going missing we try to find out why. If it’s school, we can talk to their teachers on their behalf. If it’s because Mum or Dad is struggling, we can help arrange AOD [alcohol and other drug] or mental health support for them. If they’re struggling to regulate their emotions or manage conflict we work to unpack that.”
The project works with two groups: girls aged 10-17, who have been reported missing and are at risk of becoming involved in the criminal justice system or sexual exploitation. Then there’s women aged 18-30 in early contact with the justice system.
Abbott says while every situation is different, common themes emerge.
All girls in the program have been exposed to some form of family violence. Almost 80% are either completely disengaged from school or struggling to stay engaged in class, and many require support for alcohol and drugs, their mental health, or both.
Abbott says without ties to their family or school community, these girls were also most at risk of sexual exploitation.
“These are girls that already have trauma, a low sense of self-worth. There may be early onset drug and alcohol use. There’s going to be older adults in their lives that exploit them for the provision of drugs or money or a place to stay,” Abbott says.
Skene, who previously worked with Victoria police’s sexual offences and child abuse investigation team, says social media and dating apps are exacerbating this issue.
“I’ve heard several instances where these young girls are talking with older men on apps. They offer to pay for them to come over, offer to buy them food or alcohol or drugs, and these girls end up going,” Skene says.
“We’re talking about girls as young as 12. They do not have the ability to consent. They’re being taken advantage of and unfortunately for many it starts a cycle.”
Several of the girls involved with Living Free have had unplanned pregnancies, Abbott says, pointing to a time when 21 women involved in the project had 47 children between them. The youngest was 13.
The duo say empowerment is a key part of what Living Free does. It takes many forms – from frank conversations about consent, contraception and unplanned pregnancies to weekly boxing classes.
Skene takes part in the boxing classes and says it has been rewarding to watch the girls build their confidence each week.
“The progress that some of these girls have made is incredible. Some of them have gone back to school or gotten jobs. When they come into class they walk a bit taller, they are more confident,” she says.
“There is no doubt that life has been tough for them. They’ve had some real challenges in life. But it doesn’t have to define what their future is going to be like.”
A ‘project’ not a program
Since 2017, Living Free has received a further $2.3m in grants from prominent philanthropists and the former federal Coalition government – and has supported 750 girls and young women.
Only 10% have been charged with further offending since joining the program. More than 90% of girls who were disengaged from school on referral were in education or training.
Morel was 15 years old when she first ran away from home. She ended up completing her VCE while living at a youth shelter.
She says her involvement with Living Free came when she had hit “rock bottom” in 2019. She was 23, had just finished two short stints in custody and had limited contact with her daughter.
“My lawyer from Legal Aid was the first person that not just listened to me but heard me and she referred me to Living Free,” Morel says.
“For two years, they helped me receive support for mental health, for housing and I got myself to a stable place. Without all those services at the one time, engaging with me, I would not have got to that point.”
Now, Morel has her daughter full-time and is the TaskForce’s first lived experience advocate.
The chief executive of TaskForce, Andrea McLeod, says the results of Living Free “speaks for itself”.
“It changes these girls’ trajectory,” she says. “But what we’re doing is really just the tip of the iceberg – it’s all we can afford to do with the cobbled-together little bits of funding.
“Notice how we call it a project and not a program – that’s because the funding could dry up at any time.”
McLeod is hopeful the state government – which has committed to increasing the age of criminal responsibility to 14 subject to the introduction of a new alternative service model for 12- and 13-year-olds – will consider supporting Living Free as part of the response.
The chief executive of the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association, Chris Christoforou, says Living Free is among many early intervention programs reliant on philanthropy grants because it does not “neatly fall within available funding models”.
“Innovative solutions that continue to deliver a positive impact in our community need to be secured through reliable sources of public funding, because the costs of not acting to meet needs in real time are far higher to all of us in the long term,” he says.
• In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International
