Pete Dawson is a non-Aboriginal social worker who heads up the clinical services at Bunjilwarra. He has over 20 years of experience working in the community sector in drug and alcohol (AOD) treatment, mental health services and Aboriginal health. Pete joined Bunjilwarra in 2017 as the Clinical Lead.

Bunjilwarra is an Aboriginal youth alcohol and other drug (AOD) residential rehabilitation service situated near Melbourne, Australia. Bunjilwarra has been operating as a partnership model between Aboriginal and mainstream youth AOD services since 2014; each year approximately 55 Aboriginal youth come through the program, with an average length of stay of 49 days.
Bunjilwarra has partnered with the Victorian Legal Services Board (VLSB) to deliver the Bunjilwarra First Nations Justice Project which aims to achieve better legal outcomes for young people connected to the service through the following:
• Early identification, assessment and response planning for prevailing legal issues
• Advocacy and coordination at all stages and levels of criminal and civil processes
• Education and promotion of self-efficacy for young people to take control of their own legal matters and to understand how the law can work for them
• Legal system education and capacity building across the Bunjilwarra workforce and its key stakeholders who support young people connected to the program
This project has been established in recognition that Aboriginal young people in Victoria are acutely vulnerable to prolonged involvement in the criminal justice system, and therefore to poorer health, education and other wellbeing indicators.
• In 2020 Aboriginal youth were almost six times more likely to be processed by police as alleged offenders than their non-Aboriginal peers
• In 2019, 16 percent of young people in detention were Aboriginal despite representing approx. 1.3 percent of the Victorian youth population
The Bunjilwarra Justice project has established that dedicated resources for Aboriginal youth can achieve sustainable positive outcomes and diversion from the costly and culturally unresponsive justice system. Victoria currently spends around $1.03 AUD million per year to house one young offender in custody. Bunjilwarra currently receives $2.2 AUD million funding annually, at a cost of approximately $180,000 per residential treatment bed each year.