(page from) The Dominion post dated 26 July 2011

Special unit for mentally disabled young offenders

A new intellectual disabilities unit in Porirua will give some of the country's most serious youth offenders a much greater chance of turning their lives around.

The six-bed unit, Te Aruhe, opened yesterday at Kenepuru Hospital and will take its first patient next week. It is the first inpatient youth mental health unit in New Zealand and is designed for teenagers with intellectual disabilities who have committed serious crimes.

Previously, they have had to stay in units for adult offenders, or in prisons.

Capital & Coast District Health Board's director of forensic, rehabilitation and intellectual disability services, Nigel Fairley, said the new unit helped to fill a "significant gap".

"It's a very specialised service for a small number of people who have high needs and who currently get caught up in services that aren't designed for them.

"Someone who's 13 or 14 has very different needs to someone who's 28." The first patient, whose criminal offending was "at the significant end", was a case in point, he said. "There's a young girl who's currently housed in the adult forensic service in Auckland.

"[Here] she can be with other young people instead of adults, keeping in mind that these adults themselves have their own serious issues. Her quality of life will change significantly."

Living away from older offenders would drastically increase the chances of rehabilitation for patients in the unit, he said. "They can hopefully get the specialist care that they need. The emphasis is always on rehabilitation."

The new, secure unit, which cost just under id=mce_marker million to build, has lounge areas, individual bedrooms and a self-catering kitchen.

The unit is the first stage of a national inpatient youth forensic mental health service planned for the next year or two, Dr Fairley said.