A boy in the Northern Territory's juvenile detention system was left naked for almost 11 hours because he'd attempted self harm, a new report shows.
The damning investigation by the NT Children's Commissioner Colleen Gwynne was tabled in parliament on Wednesday.
The report identified systemic failings in dealing with young persons who had threatened or inflicted self-harm and were placed in an isolated 'at-risk' cell.
It looks at incidents involving detainees at the Don Dale and Alice Springs youth detention centres between December 2014 and September 2015.
One teenager who'd attempted self harm by ripping a sheet was denied clothing and bedding for several hours.
Another young offender was placed in a solitary confinement cell for four days before being seen by mental health counsellors.
The investigation found that the approach to incidents where young persons were placed at-risk was "reactive, confronting and at times frantic".
"It is not cognisant of the complex, extremely vulnerable nature of those young persons and fails to apply a therapeutic or preventative approach in dealing with those young persons," the report said.
The new NT government has accepted the report's 21 recommendations and says it will implement them all by February next year.
Labor this week introduced legislation to ban the use of restraint chairs on youths and had already moved juvenile detention out of the Corrections Department.
Ms Gwynne wants to work collaboratively with the government and agencies to ensure that juvenile offenders are treated in a rehabilitative way.
"We hope that those young people most at risk in our detention centres are provided with all the necessary services and support to safeguard their emotional and physical well being," she said.
Footage of boys being tear-gassed, shackled and spit hooded at Don Dale was reported by ABC's Four Corners program earlier this year.
It sparked national outrage and a royal commission into the NT's youth detention and protection systems, where Indigenous people are vastly over represented.
The inquiry's commissioners Margaret White and Mick Gooda spent Wednesday meeting with residents of Yuendumu, a remote community in Central Australia.
Residents called on the government to invest in community-led rehabilitation instead of juvenile detention, praising programs like Mount Theo, a retreat where Aboriginal elders help vulnerable kids reconnect to country and culture.
The commissioners are touring indigenous communities across the Territory before the inquiry resumes formal hearings in November, and will head to the red centre on Thursday to hear stories from the Mutitjulu community near Uluru.
