The Name.Narrate.Navigate (NNN) Program: A Case Study of Tertiary Intervention for Justice-Involved Youth in Regional Australia

Tamara Blakemore; Louise Rak; Susan Rayment-McHugh; Elsie Randall; Chris Krogh; Meaghan Katrak Harris; Sally Hunt; Daniel Ebbin; Graeme Stuart; Shaun McCarthy

doi:10.3390/bs16050679

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The Name.Narrate.Navigate (NNN) Program: A Case Study of Tertiary Intervention for Justice-Involved Youth in Regional Australia

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The Name.Narrate.Navigate (NNN) Program: A Case Study of Tertiary Intervention for Justice-Involved Youth in Regional Australia

Tamara Blakemore, Louise Rak, Susan Rayment-McHugh, Elsie Randall, Chris Krogh, Meaghan Katrak Harris, Sally Hunt, Daniel Ebbin, Graeme Stuart and Shaun McCarthy

Behavioral Sciences, Vol.16(5), pp.1-22

2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16050679

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Abstract

youth violence

trauma-informed practice

culturally responsive intervention

realist evaluation

tertiary intervention

dialectical behaviour therapy

photovoice

Name.Narrate.Navigate (NNN) is a trauma-informed program for justice-involved young people aged 12–18 years, recognising that experience and use of violence are often interconnected and may involve serious criminal behaviour, including vulnerability to criminal exploitation. NNN addresses a gap in evidence-based, culturally responsive tertiary interventions for this cohort in regional New South Wales (NSW), Australia, integrating dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) principles with Aboriginal ways of knowing and doing, co-designed through community-based participatory research (CBPR) with Aboriginal community members, young people, and frontline practitioners. The program aims to strengthen skills for self-awareness, self-regulation and healthy connection through relational, creative, and participatory approaches. Using a realist evaluation framework, this paper examines what works in NNN, for whom, and under what circumstances. Drawing on participant session ratings, practitioner observations, program documentation, and interviews, findings are organised across four domains: effects, mechanisms, moderators, and implementation. Indicative findings show that engagement, emerging changes in the narratives of self, and developing skills for self-regulation were most evident when trauma-informed and culturally safe practice was enacted within genuinely relational, strengths-based encounters. These conditions are identified and discussed as transferable principles for the field, key amongst them that intervention readiness must be treated as a capacity to be actively built rather than a precondition to be screened for; and that creative, participant-led methods represent an epistemological commitment to whose knowledge counts in practice. This case study contributes to a critically underserved evidence base by documenting not only what a tertiary youth violence intervention looks like, but the conditions under which it begins to work and for whom.

Details

Title: The Name.Narrate.Navigate (NNN) Program: A Case Study of Tertiary Intervention for Justice-Involved Youth in Regional Australia
Authors: Tamara Blakemore (Corresponding Author) - University of Newcastle Australia
Louise Rak - University of Newcastle Australia
Susan Rayment-McHugh - University of the Sunshine Coast
Elsie Randall - Justiz Community (Australia)
Chris Krogh - University of Newcastle Australia
Meaghan Katrak Harris - University of Newcastle Australia
Sally Hunt - University of Newcastle Australia
Daniel Ebbin - University of Newcastle Australia
Graeme Stuart - University of Newcastle Australia
Shaun McCarthy - University of Newcastle Australia
Publication details: Behavioral Sciences, Vol.16(5), pp.1-22
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date published: 2026
DOI: 10.3390/bs16050679
ISSN: 2076-328X
Copyright note: © 2026 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
Data Availability: Data are unavailable due to privacy and ethical restrictions relating to the protected nature of the young people involved.
Grant note: This research was funded by the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, G2101000; NSW Department of Communities and Justice, G2200070; Westpac Banking Corporation, G2100846; Department of Social Services, G1800632, G2400975; Centre for Excellence in Equity in Higher Education (CEEHE).
Organisation Unit: Healthy Ageing Research Cluster; School of Law and Society; Sexual Violence Research and Prevention Unit
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991228954302621
Output Type: Journal article

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