- Published:
- Tuesday 18 November 2025 at 9:00 am
| Senior Constable Andrew Moreton is on a crusade to help children in Darebin avoid a life of crime. |
On a mission
Senior Constable Andrew Moreton is on a mission that started after a series of assaults and armed robberies outside local high schools in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
The crimes involved three youths, one of whom he knew had disengaged from school already and two he hadn’t seen before.
“As a youth officer, I like to think I know who's who in the community, but I didn't know these two, and it provoked me to ask the high school about them,” Sen Const Moreton said.
“I was surprised to hear they had rarely attended school in the last year and a half.
"That meant they had missed most of year seven and eight, so the high school really didn’t know much about them at all.
“So I went to the primary school they had attended, who told me they had been very challenging kids – the teachers had done their best and then handed them on to the high school.
"It set me to thinking, how many of these kids are falling through the cracks?”
Sen Const Moreton approached the primary school again and asked them to provide him with a list of the most challenging kids from the past 10 years.
He received a list back that had 92 names on it.
“When I ran the list through our crime data bases, there were 3211 entries for those 92 names. That’s from one school,” he said.
“Of that number, all but one were victims of family violence, a third had committed at least one criminal offence, and of that third, roughly 50 per cent committed a list of offences longer than my arm, so significant offending.”
Sen Const Moreton considered what he could do to change the trajectory of kids before they hit high school.
“Most kids are actually travelling fine and doing well.
"Yes, they might have a hiccup, but predominantly it's a small cohort of people doing the same crimes.”
Looking to community connections
He then started to reach out to community groups for advice.
“I was asking them ‘What do we do for young people?’ After speaking to every organisation you can possibly think of, I finally found an organisation called 1000 Generations.”
The mission of 1000 Generations is centred around breaking cycles of hardship and helping kids reach their potential through targeted programs, community partnerships and compassionate support.
“I initially got the primary school on board and secured seed funding through the Police Youth Fund, which is a court-based fund, to get it up and running.”
Sen Const Moreton then reached out to community organisations in the local area, including the Country Women’s Association, Rotary, Scouts, Australian Christian Churches and retired Ambulance Victoria members and asked them to join the program and provide mentors.
“These are all volunteers but they are essential as they provide the kids with positive role models with who they can identify,” he said.
After the initial success of the program, Sen Const Moreton worked tirelessly to get more community groups onboard, with Darebin Council Youth Services and Dardi Munwurro – a local Aboriginal support group - joining the program.
“These services typically wait for challenging kids to come to them," Sen Const Moreton said.
"We flipped it and brought them to the kids, when the issues are still in their infancy and there is a chance to help them.
“If we can get to these kids early and provide them with positive role models as mentors and continue that into their secondary education, I think we will have a chance to turn them around.
"Waiting until they’re 12 is too late.”
Leaving a legacy
Sen Const Moreton said the program will take up to 10 years to prove its true worth in diverting people from a life of offending, but there are already green shoots.
A report from 1000 Generations showed significant increases in the children’s school attendance, connection, emotional regulation, positive behaviour and their goals and aspirations.
“At the start of this program last year, a 10-year-old who came to my attention because of photos on social media of him carrying machetes almost bigger than himself, said in front of everybody, ‘What's it like to be stabbed?’ That was his question.
“By the end of the program, he said ‘I think I could be a chippy’. So, we've moved him a long way in a short period of time.”
From one primary school, the program has recently expanded to include two other primary schools in the area and the high school into which they feed.
“Ultimately, it’s our hope this approach becomes a long-term community-based response, which intervenes much earlier in a young person’s life," Sen Const Moreton said.
"Pleasingly, that seems to be happening as Preston Rotary and Country Women's Association are not only providing mentors for the program, but also funding too.
"As a vested stakeholder in its success, I am hopeful that working together as a community we can make significant progress in preventing youth crime.”
To find out more about how we support at-risk youth to reduce offending across Victoria visit Embedded Youth Outreach Program.
Editorial Nadine Lyford
Photography Supplied
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