CULT2017 Youth, Justice and Practice Assignment 3: Professional task — Briefing paper
Psychology and Community Service
21st Jul 2025
2
Team/Individual task Individual
Word limit: 1500 words (+/- 10%)
Weighting: 40%
Due date: 5pm AEST Monday 28 July 2025 (Week 11)
After you have read this information, head over to the Assignment 3 Q&A discussion board to ask any questions and see what your peers are saying about this assignment.
To pass this subject of study, you must achieve an aggregated grade of at least 50%. Although this assignment is not a mandatory submission, completing this assignment will give you the best chance of achieving this minimum requirement.
As part of this assignment, you are to imagine that the New South Wales (NSW) Parliament is seeking submissions from relevant stakeholders in the field of youth justice (e.g. police, legal aid, case managers, adolescent psychologists, advocacy groups, teachers and researchers), in relation to two proposals. As a key stakeholder yourself, you will respond to one of these proposals in the form of a briefing paper. The briefing paper will contain your advice to the NSW government, on behalf of young people in NSW.
This assignment supports Subject Learning Outcomes 1, 3 and 4.
Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools to brainstorm ideas, summarise reading material or to edit your submission is permitted. The content of your final submission must be your original work. Be aware that the output from generative AI tools may be incorrect, incomplete or biased.
Working with another person or technology in order to gain an unfair advantage in assessment or improperly obtaining answers from a third party including generative AI to questions in an examination or other form of assessment may lead to sanctions under the Student Misconduct Rule. Use of generative AI tools may be detected. More information is available on the Library web page.
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Read through the following information to understand and meet the requirements of this assignment:
In this part of the assignment, you will write a briefing paper addressed to the NSW Parliament that discusses the possible consequences of a Proposal on young people in NSW. You may select your proposal of focus from the following list:
Proposal 1: Abolish the NSW Youth Justice System and re-imagine it in line with a 'Child First' rights-based system for responding to children in conflict with the law.
Proposal 2: Re-allocate $3 million in state funding away from youth detention centres to expand youth focused community programs under 'Just Reinvest NSW' (Just Reinvest NSW, N.D), where Aboriginal communities lead on solutions to address the over representation of First Nations young people in the youth justice system.
Choose one of the proposals listed above and write a 1,500-word (+/-10%) 'Briefing Paper'. Your paper should advise the NSW Government on the potential consequences of the selected proposal for young people in NSW. Ensure your briefing paper follows the provided Briefing Paper - Blank Template (DOCX 37 KB).
These should be used as headings. Your paper should be double-spaced and use a legible font in size 12.
For more detailed instructions on how to complete each section of the briefing paper, refer to and use Assignment 3: Briefing Paper details guide (PDF 139 KB) (Western Sydney University 2019).
Important note: Please use the 'Assignment 3: Professional Task - Briefing paper template' located in the supporting resources section to complete your briefing paper.
Your briefing paper must:
▢ Include a minimum of five scholarly sources (e.g. journal articles, books, book chapters and respected government research papers)
▢ Include viewpoints that are substantiated using relevant literature, empirical evidence and convincing arguments
▢ Acknowledge the ideas of others; reference direct quotes properly using the Harvard WesternSydU referencing style and include a reference list at the end.
Please note: Your reference list is not included in the word count, but in-text citations are.
View the marking guide under 'Assignment criteria' to see a detailed breakdown of how your work will be assessed. This is an excellent place to start your preparations for this assignment.
Refer back to the marking guide frequently to make sure you are meeting the requirements.
Harvard WesternSydU referencing style guide (PDF 199 KB) (Western Sydney University Library 2019).
Harvard WesternSydU style – In-text citations (Links to an external site.) (Western Sydney University Library 2020).
Library Study Smart —a library resource that helps you complete assignments (Western Sydney University Library, 2021).
Western Sydney University Library has further information about referencing on their Referencing and citationLinks to an external site. page.