The schoolyard plan to stop at-risk students from turning to crime

Social workers will be employed in 20 Victorian government schools as part of an early intervention program aimed at reducing the state’s rate of violent youth crime.

The Allan government will announce the $5.6 million program on Wednesday, pledging to have social workers deployed in the 2026 school year, working with students at risk of dropping out of school, an outcome that dramatically increases a young person’s likelihood of turning to violent crime.

The plan, however, has drawn immediate criticism from the main teachers’ union, which dismissed it as mere “lip service” concerning the necessary work for at-risk youth in the state’s schools.

The Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union said it had spent two decades calling for “full-service schools” that support students’ health and welfare, as well as their education, and that governments had failed to invest.

The social workers will fit into a broader $27 million policy response known as the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), which aims to rehabilitate youth offenders or deter them from committing crimes, drawing from a public health model that has been successful in Scotland.

The social workers, who will be officially titled Early Intervention Officers, will aim to work with children who are drifting away from education and towards violence, crime and anti-social behaviour.

The announcement follows a series of tough-on-crime policies Labor began to roll out last week, in response to mounting pressure on the government over crime and youth offending.

The headline policy was a proposed law under which children could be tried as adults in the courts for violent crimes, including home invasions and armed robbery, and which could result in children as young as 14 years being handed life sentences.

The school officers will start their work with children displaying the early signs of a likely slide into violence, rather than trying to turn the worst offenders around.

The government says that a study of 70 of the state’s most serious offenders aged between 12 and 17 years, showed 70 per cent of the children had been “chronically absent” from school before their most serious violence emerged.

More than half of the young people had been suspended and three expelled from government schools, most had poorer than average study results, with poor mental health and concerning schoolyard behaviours also acting as signposts on the path to violent crime.

The government says it has not yet identified the 20 schools where the social workers will be deployed and says it will use data, intelligence and consultation with school communities to choose the schools for the program.

Premier Jacinta Allan said on Tuesday that children who committed violent crimes should face serious consequences.

“But there are no easy solutions, and the best approach is to intervene early and stop crime before it starts,” the Premier said.

“We’re putting Early Intervention Officers in schools to identify the children at risk of heading down the path of violence – and they’ll work with the whole school community to keep them on the path toward a positive life.”

Education Minister Ben Carrol said that staying at school and having “positive peer relationships” had been proven to prevent at-risk children from getting into crime.

“Schools already do an incredible job, but we now need Early Intervention Officers to provide dedicated case management for troubled kids – using proven strategies to keep them at school and on the right track,” the minister said.

But Briley Stokes, the union’s deputy branch president, said the reforms were among the least impressive measures that Carroll and Allan could possibly offer.

“It doesn’t take special research. Any teacher or principal knows that high levels of absenteeism is a sign that a student needs support,” Stokes said.

“School staff support students whenever there are health, wellbeing or attendance concerns however this is done in the context of chronically underfunded schools.

“Embedding social workers in 20 schools pays lip service to the real needs of students and school staff across the state. To be taken seriously, the Allan Labor Government must do more.”

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