The Port Augusta and Davenport Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan is a community-led roadmap towards a safer, stronger, and more connected community. Developed with local residents, the plan sets out practical actions to support children, families, and visitors. It focuses on listening, healing, and empowering and brings together services and voices to create lasting change.
View and download the Plan
Vision
Port Augusta is a city of beauty with a thriving, engaged, inclusive, diverse and vibrant community.
Call to action
- To maintain and grow these strengths requires a stronger community and service response to support the safety and wellbeing of residents and those who visit.
- Through caring, safety and partnership we will ensure a genuine celebration of all peoples and cultures in the community. A genuine respect for Aboriginal people and culture on this land through celebration and challenging racism. And we will give status and voice to children and young people.
- This will be a community that brings people together, empowers and gives everyone a voice, and holds each other to this vision.
Note: This Plan includes indicative actions that are subject to further discussion, including on timeframes and funding considerations. A Community Leadership Group has been formed to finalise this Port Augusta and Davenport Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan that has been drafted with the local community over the past year, identify priority actions within it linked to the new funding and establish monitoring and evaluation of outcomes.
Strategies and actions for achieving our vision
We’re already taking steps like extending youth services and improving mental health care for high-risk young people. Looking ahead, we’ll focus on actions across 3 key areas to improve community life.
What's already happening
- Extending the operating hours of the Port Augusta Youth Centre
- Expanding the youth bus service
- Assertive youth engagement across Port Augusta and Davenport
- Expanding the existing Port Augusta Outreach Program with a focus on visitors and young people
- Expanding Mobile Assistance Program and alcohol and other drug (AOD) assertive outreach program
- Extending the opening hours for ADAC Port Augusta Day Centre
- Providing transport and support for Return to Country/Community
- A clinical Child and Adolescent Mental Health Consultant to provide clinical support for high-risk young people
- Supporting establishment of the Community Leadership Group, including monitoring and evaluation framework
- Preparations to respond quickly to increased need / increase in anti-social behaviour over summer
- Supporting young people’s voices to be heard.
What else could we do?
Our approach consists of 3 main components: community caring, community safety and partnerships. Each of these components has 1 or more actions.
Community caring
Listen to the voices of children and young people and support their hopes and dreams
Action: Hold youth forums across Port Augusta and Davenport to enable young people to share their views and aspirations for the future.
Walk alongside families as they face the challenges of everyday life, supporting their children to thrive in education, culture and community
Action: Actively engage young people at risk of or currently excluded from the school environment through a specialised case management approach to work with students to identify barriers to learning and set clear and achievable goals.
Action: Develop a mobile music education and diversion program in partnership with local Aboriginal led media organisations.
Action: Develop and implement a community strategy to educate families, children and young people on positive and safe practices on social media and technology.
Action: Consider establishing culturally appropriate parenting programs for parents of young children (e.g. Circle of Security program to enhance attachment security between parents/ care givers and children) or for expectant mothers.
Strengthen the relationship between schools and families to grow school engagement and the value it can offer to families and communities.
Action: Develop a family engagement strategy in partnership with the Department for Education, family services and local community.
Support community through a ‘hub’ of services that provides access and referral pathways for local residents, remote visitors and young people
Action: Establish a community service hub in Port Augusta where people can connect with each other and services to provide practical support for families.
Action: Fund enhanced diversion and recreation programs to support safety and wellbeing across the community.
Recognise and respond to trauma in all its forms through holistic programs
Action: Develop and implement a trauma responsive program that includes training service providers and community in trauma and restorative practices.
Action: Continue providing training and support for restorative practices across Port Augusta and Davenport Community.
Action: Provide training for staff working with children and young people with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and other neuro-disabilities to appropriately recognise and understand neuro-disability in young people, reframe behaviours and respond appropriately to their needs.
Action: Investigate ways to increase local access to mental health professionals, especially for children and young people.
Provide information to the community about available services and resources that is easy to understand and access
Action: Develop and distribute a service directory on available services and resources, including exploring an online version.
Action: Ensure community and service activities are promoted on the council website, in the newspaper and in newsletters.
Action: Continue to produce a ‘calendar of events’ for young people over the school holidays.
Work with industry and community on gambling help strategies
Action: Implement an industry and community working group to explore additional or re-focussed gambling help strategies which build on existing supports.
Respond to workforce and recruitment issues in service areas supporting community safety and wellbeing
Action: Bring together a working group to develop an innovative and local workforce strategy to support staff recruitment and retention in the human services and safety and wellbeing sector.
Community safety
Work with children and young people with disruptive and risky behaviour with increased ‘out-of-hours’ programs, restorative practice, and mentoring (including by Elders)
Action: Increase ‘out-of-hours’ programs and cultural mentoring for children and young people with risky behaviours – including increased hours for the Youth Centre and Youth Bus, implementing assertive youth outreach in Port Augusta and Davenport, and developing Aboriginal-led on-country experiences.
Action: Increase locally based access to restorative mechanisms led by Elders and in partnership with justice agencies.
Action: Re-establish youth program in Davenport including access to transport (bus).
Action: Continue multi-agency, intensive youth response, with access to specialised clinical support for high risk young people.
Action: Continue and expand Child Diversion Program supports in Port Augusta and Davenport.
Action: Strengthen role of community constables in helping young people understand consequences of their risky behaviours.
Work with and respond to remote visitors exhibiting risky behaviours
Action: Support remote visitors who engage in risky behaviours through: a coordinated active outreach response; improving access to services, basic necessities, suitable spaces and accommodation that are culturally safe and appropriate; and a means to return home.
Action: Continue existing programs that support Aboriginal tenancies with overcrowding, disruption, property condition and tenancy sustainment.
Increase access to appropriate accommodation in Port Augusta and Davenport
Action: Convene working groups to examine and recommend appropriate accommodation for remote visitors, young people and others experiencing homelessness or unstable accommodation.
Increase efforts to reduce alcohol and other drug (AOD) related harm
Action: Work with DASSA and key service providers to examine ways of establishing a culturally appropriate alcohol and other drugs management program and other enhanced services.
Action: Partner with local alcohol retailers and the Liquor Licencing Commissioner on additional strategies to increase responsible drinking behaviour.
Action: Enhance and expand access to drug and alcohol service providers for youth focusing on education, prevention, intervention and support.
Develop crime prevention strategies to underpin immediate responses
Action: Expand prisoner release supports and develop new approaches to prisoner release, including transport to community.
Support victims of crime by walking alongside victims, and supporting wherever possible, including exploring restorative processes
Action: Establish a working group (including members with lived experience) to develop a victims of crime response that includes restorative practices.
Reduce family and interpersonal violence through culturally responsive services for men and women, including men’s behaviour change programs
Action: Enhance and expand local and culturally appropriate responses to family and interpersonal violence for women, men and families.
Action: Expansion of the KIND program to the Port Augusta region with a dedicated family therapist to work with young people.
Partnership: working together to achieve positive outcomes
Build and implement a robust governance model
Action: Develop and implement a governance and communication model that brings together Aboriginal leaders, young people, local community and service providers.
Ensure community know what is planned, what is happening, and how we’re measuring outcomes
Action: Use multiple communication methods to keep the community up to date including online forums, newspapers, radio and other media.
Action: Develop measurement tools to know that we’re making a difference.
How we will work together
To ensure our efforts are sustainable, the following principles will guide how we work together to turn our special efforts into ‘business as usual’.
- We will support each other’s efforts to ensure people are at the centre of their own development.
- We will develop agreed practices and indicators across agencies to support intentional service coordination, collaboration and integration.
To support this, we will promote and prioritise the following:
Share leadership
- Ensure governance structures enable shared decision- making and leadership across the community.
- Develop shared language. Embed a collaborative integrated culture.
- Work in partnership to implement the identified actions and strategies of the Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan.
Open and transparent partnership
- Conduct ourselves with integrity and be transparent in our actions and decisions.
- Have frank and honest discussions with each other.
- Ensure regular reporting on actions and outcomes.
Share and use data to make better decisions
- Ensure integrity of the data we use, to better plan responses across all services.
- Recognise and respect the sovereignty of Aboriginal-owned data.
Reduce systemic discrimination
- Focus on the ways service systems advantage/ disadvantage the people we seek to support.
- Build cultural capabilities in partner agencies by identifying and building best practice.
Build effective communication
- To enable information and knowledge sharing between all stakeholders.
Grow and support an Aboriginal workforce
- Build continuity, local leadership, and enable community involvement in service design, provision and evaluation.
Grow our emphasis on prevention and early intervention
- Focus on changing behaviours, engagement in learning and positive participation.
- Build responsive services and community ownership.
How will we know we’re making a difference?
The Community Leadership Group will decide how to measure progress and success. Early ideas include:
- tracking things like fewer emergency visits for trauma or intoxication
- fewer offences
- better school attendance
- fewer visits to the Sobering Up Unit
- and more positive community feedback and media.
They will also look at surveys (including from young people) and formal reviews of key programs.
A shared data platform will be developed, with a strong focus on Aboriginal data sovereignty, Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations and the broader community.
Evaluation will also check how well services are working together—for example, making sure people only need to tell their story once.