The YFS Board members October 2017

Housing and homelessness continued to dominate our service delivery at YFS in 2016-17. Half of the 11,689 contacts to YFS Connect last year related to homelessness,

risk of homelessness or tenancy issues.

This trend follows through to our case management programs. The proportion of clients who were homeless or at risk when they engaged with us ranged from 24% in our Youthlink youth engagement program, 45% for Step by Step family support, 60% for Money Smart financial capability service and almost 100% for our Housing First service. All our teams have developed expertise in helping people find housing rapidly, given the importance of stable housing as a foundation for independence and participation.

Our capacity to respond to youth homelessness in Logan increased when we were awarded a contract for additional mobile outreach services for young people. In conjunction with this expansion, we introduced employment advisory services for housing clients, and a project to follow up housing clients to track their housing sustainability over time.

Looking forward: In 2017-18, YFS will relinquish the management of 24 community housing properties to larger providers, retaining 14 crisis housing units that are associated with our housing case management service.

78% of YFS clients exited the service in stable housing, compared to 50% on entry. Only 6% of clients remained homeless when we finished working with them – often this was simply because we lost touch with them. We are working throughout YFS to improve this outcome across the board.

Many of our clients are on low incomes, and most experience financial stress. In 2016-17,

our efforts focused on three areas:

• increasing clients’ income by supporting them into employment
• improving people’s ability to cope on their incomes through our    financial counselling and capability services
• preventing people getting into financial difficulties through community education.

In 2016-17 we invested in an employment transition worker in our Substation33 team to help Substation volunteers move into paid work once they gained experience and skills with us. We also employed an employment engagement worker to work with clients in our case management teams, particularly our PHAMs mental health recovery service. These workers joined our ParentsNext team to improve work readiness of people facing significant barriers to employment. We estimate that 75 vulnerable people moved into work in 2016-17 through YFS’ efforts, while ParentsNext supported a further 500 parents to set work-related goals and take action to achieve them.

Our financial counsellors and Money Smart workers continued to help people deal with financial crises. Many of our clients have debilitating debts to rental companies. With a grant from the Department of Social Services, we launched a marketing campaign to promote alternatives to consumer leases for appliances and furniture. Our Done With Debt campaign generated awareness of alternatives including no interest loans (NILS) and prompted calls to YFS Connect and visits to the campaign website from people considering rentals.

Looking forward: In 2017-18, YFS will continue to build our focus on employment. We look forward to working with vulnerable people on innovative work-related projects.

Solar Sign Solutions

In October 2016, YFS partnered with Beaucare to launch a much-needed domestic violence counselling and court support service for the Beaudesert area. Some additional funding for our Responsible Men’s behaviour change group program for perpetrators allowed us to increase to five groups weekly, working with 75 men in groups (and 130 men overall) at any given time, as well as supporting their partners with advocacy and referrals. An evaluation by Griffith University showed positive results, and helped us improve the program’s effectiveness.

YFS is an active contributor to the Logan Integrated Service Response to Domestic Violence and to the High Risk Team which commenced In January 2017. The improved information sharing between organisations has greatly increased our collective ability to support victims of high-risk perpetrators to achieve safety, and to hold perpetrators accountable.

Our Legal service was re-funded in 2016-17 after a period of uncertainty. YFS Legal represented approximately 500 children and young people in the Beenleigh Children’s Court last year, supporting them to get fair treatment in the justice system and link with the other services they need.

Looking forward: In 2017-18, YFS will work with young people, employment support services and community groups to develop an action plan to reduce the impact of drug and alcohol use on the work prospects of vulnerable job seekers.

Project HERA

While clients generally improved on financial issues, many remain in financial stress. Across all programs we asked clients about their financial situation through our organisational outcomes questions. On entry to our services 52% of clients reported having trouble paying a bill in the past month, compared with 41% of clients on exit. Clearly our clients need further support to increase their financial capacity, which is why we are focusing on employment.

In our domestic violence services for victims, 81% of clients reported improvements in safety. Our SHIFT youth drug and alcohol clients reported a reduction in risks associated with use of alcohol and other drugs. Across our Federally-funded programs on average YFS clients rated themselves 2.61/5 on personal and family safety on entry to our programs and 3.24/5 on exit, with the greatest improvement in our Personal Helpers and Mentors (PHaMs) mental health recovery program.

Connections with family, friends and community supports are really important for ongoing wellbeing. All YFS case management programs try to help clients build linkages with other supports so they can sustain change in their lives.

Our disability services are particularly focused on connections and participation. Our Community Connections and Social Links programs continued to grow in 2016-17, attracting more  clients keen to participate in a wide range of group activities in the community or to pursue their individual interests with support.

In 2016-17, YFS expanded The Club group program to seven Logan schools thanks to a grant from the Amanda Flynn Foundation and ongoing funding from Communities for Children. The Club worked with 397 vulnerable students to help them improve their social skills and ability to thrive in the school environment. Unfortunately funding for The Club ended at the end of the financial year.

Looking forward: In 2017-18 YFS will prepare for the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme in Logan. Sadly, YFS will not register as an NDIS provider for viability reasons, so we will support our clients to make the most of the NDIS and to transition to their chosen services.

Community Connections

Many of our programs measure connectedness in different ways. For example our Intensive Family Support Service assesses social connections and family interactions, with clients making significant improvements in both. Youthlink clients improved their family relations and social connections – both of which are a focus for our work.

In our programs that use the SCORE outcomes measurement system, YFS clients improved on all connectedness outcomes. PHAMS clients saw the greatest improvements in community participation and family functioning; while Money Smart clients saw the greatest improvements in engagement with relevant support services.

Skills and education are critical for independence and participation. Education is a key to escaping disadvantage, and skills such as communication, coping, money management, tenancy, control of emotions help people maintain stability.

Our Step by Step family support team undertook a process of development and improvement in 2016-17, working with a families expert to ensure our work with parents helps them build the skills they need to improve family functioning in sustainable ways. An evaluation of the program found that parents improved their knowledge, skills, behaviours, confidence to make decisions, engagement with support agencies, and impact of immediate crises.

Our Get Ready team continued to educate people in Logan, Redlands and the Gold Coast about the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Over the course of the year, Get Ready helped more than 1,300 people with disability and their carers and supporters to prepare for the rollout of the NDIS in July 2018.

Looking forward: In 2017-18, YFS is developing the capacity of case managers across our organisation in crucial areas like parenting and child development, rapid rehousing and domestic violence safety planning.

YFS teams measure improvement in clients’ skills in different ways depending on the team. Those programs that use the SCORE outcome measurement tool noted significant improvement in knowledge, skills and behaviours among clients, particularly in our MoneySmart and Financial Counselling areas where clients improved their financial literacy.

YouthLink clients had strong improvements in their engagement with schooling, while SHIFT clients reported a decrease in the impact of alcohol and drug use on performance at school or work.

ParentsNext used the WorkStar assessment tool with a sample of clients as part of an external evaluation of the program. Clients noted the greatest improvement in job-specific skills and job-search skills through their interaction with the program, but also improved their basic skills and social skills for work.

YFS works with people to build hope and aspirations in many ways.

Our R4Respect initiative is based on hope that young people can change the way we see relationships. In 2016-17 our 15 R4Respect youth ambassadors talked with more than 5,000 young  people about respect in relationships. They also used social media to engage with thousands more. In September 2016, R4Respect Ambassadors attended the international Prevalent & Preventable Domestic Violence international conference in Adelaide to share stories about young people leading change with delegates from around Australia, New Zealand, the Asia Pacific and Europe.

During the year, R4Respect partnered with Griffith University film students to produce some animated videos to prevent disrespectful or controlling behaviours like cat calling, stalking and locker room stalk. The seven “Bad Apple” videos feature fruit and vegetable puns to raise young people’s awareness of the serious implications of behaviours that are often seen as harmless.

YFS’ Reconciliation Action Plan is founded in hope. In 2016-17 we embedded the plan’s themes of relationships, respect and opportunity in every YFS team. We are pleased to see that 13% of our staff, 21% of our case management clients and 8% of our case work clients  identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in the year under review.  When we opened our new premises at 372 Kingston Road Slacks Creek in October 2016 we were pleased to include co-location space for the Logan District Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation for Elders.

Looking forward: In 2017-18, YFS will launch Sure Steps, a family coaching approach to help public housing tenants with young children identify and achieve aspirations for their families. We developed the approach in consultation with Logan Together and the Department of Housing and Public Works, and look forward to trialling it with 30 Logan families.

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