WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised the following story contains the name of a person who has died.

The mother of Cleveland Dodd — the first child recorded to die in Western Australia's youth justice system — will meet Premier Roger Cook in the wake of coronial findings into her son's death which were handed down on Monday.

Justice advocate Gerry Georgatos, acting as spokesperson for Nadene Dodd, told National Indigenous Times she wants to discuss with the Premier what more could have been done to prevent her son's death.

Cleveland died on 19 October 2023 at the age of 16.

The Yamatji boy died after one week on life support following a self-harm incident inside Unit 18, the youth facility within Casuarina Prison, a maximum-security adult jail 35 kilometres south of Boorloo/Perth.

Inquest documents show that on 74 of the 86 days he was held in Unit 18, Cleveland was confined for almost the entire day, with little access to programs or time outdoors.

Just after midnight on 12 October, he told staff over the intercom he intended to take his own life. Officers told him not to speak that way.

The CCTV camera in his cell had been covered with toilet paper since mid-afternoon and had not been cleared.

About 13 minutes after his warning to staff, he was found unresponsive and taken to Fiona Stanley Hospital.

Public records show Cleveland had already been held in prolonged confinement at both Banksia Hill and Unit 18 in the months leading up to his death.

Coroner Philip Urquhart told the court on Monday that Unit 18 is dangerous and should be closed "as a matter of urgency".

He made 15 adverse findings and 19 recommendations, including a special inquiry into how Unit 18 came to operate as Western Australia's second youth detention centre.

Without directly commenting on the findings, Mr Cook responded by saying "a series of changes across the youth justice system since 2023".

"Works are underway on the more-than $158 million dollar purpose-designed youth detention centre, which will replace Unit 18," Mr Cook told National Indigenous Times.

However in September a State Government infrastructure report revealed a long-promised new youth detention centre at Banksia Hill will not be ready until 2028 — a delay Mr Georgatos labelled "another betrayal" by the state's Department of Justice.

The 30-bed facility was announced in the 2022 by the McGowan Government.

When Cleveland's mother was finally allowed into Unit 18 after her son's death, staff had placed his schoolwork neatly on the bed in the cell where he had tried to take his life.

Worksheets had been given to him only days earlier, during a rare moment when education material was provided.

Mr Georgatos said that detail has stayed with him because Cleveland had been asking for schoolwork for months.

"He wanted something to study, something to focus on," Mr Georgatos told National Indigenous Times.

"He'd always been a good student. Excellent in primary school. He loved school, and his teachers loved him, they even provided statements about the potential they saw in him.

He did well in the early years of high school before he went off track, but the desire to learn never left him."

Inside Unit 18, he said, Cleveland repeatedly asked for education materials and proper tuition.

"That support never came," Mr Georgatos said.

"They gave him a few sheets of paper right towards the end, and that was it. What he needed was an education provider actually present, not scraps of paperwork thrown into a cell.

"We have world-class education systems in this State, and what he got didn't even meet basement-level standards."

He said WA remains the only jurisdiction in the country where youth detention education is run under Corrective Services, rather than the Department of Education.

"Every other state in Australia delivers education in youth detention through Education, not Corrective Services," he said.

"That matters. If you want rehabilitation, you need proper teaching, proper engagement. Cleveland never got that."