Maroochydore YACCA
Philosophy & Vision
IFYS Mission Statement
The Integrated Family and Youth Service (IFYS) will provide services to meet the needs of young people, families and communities. Through partnerships with these individuals and groups, IFYS will function in an environment of honesty, integrity and respect.
IFYS Youth Engagement Program Philosophy
If young people are provided with the tools and resources necessary to meet their individual needs, and have access to information and appropriate supports, they can then begin to make lifestyle decisions motivated by choice rather than by necessity.
IFYS Youth Engagement Program Goals
• Address the barriers or the impact of barriers to young people's safety, well-being and engagement in family and community living arrangements.
• Assist young people in developing social and personal skills for independent and successful community living.
• Become an active partner in community planning and development around the delivery of effective, collaborative responses to the needs of young people living within the Sunshine Coast community.
• Provide an accessible service with the capacity to respond in a timely fashion and in a manner that invites active participation by young people.
• Provide a service that is focused on client need and recognises the full range of factors that can impact on the lives of young people.
• Provide a culturally and contextually sensitive service.
• Create a sustainable and continuous support network for individuals, families and the community.
• Commit to an ongoing review and evaluation process that provides service users and the community with an opportunity to influence the direction and focus of service development.
Characteristics of the area in which we work
The Caloundra and Maroochydore areas are located at the southern end of the Sunshine Coast.
The Sunshine Coast has developed as a major tourism destination and the current population is over 277,000, making it Australia's 10th largest area for population.
The Sunshine Coast is an extensive area with many eco-systems. The marine environment includes: beaches, headlands, estuaries and ocean, while the hinterland ranges from agricultural land to remnants of tropical rainforest.
The young people we work with are identified as being at risk of becoming involved in juvenile crime or are involved in the Youth Justice System.
Activities and services that we provide
Caloundra/Maroochydore YACCA Service is attached to Integrated Family & Youth Service, Youth Engagement Program.
The Caloundra/Maroochydore YACCA Service delivers crime prevention outcomes by building on existing community strengths and resources. It does this through the provision of court support, the IFYS Building Futures Flexi School and through the provision of flexible brokerage to fund community based crime prevention projects or activities.
By building on community capacity and value adding to existing services, the YACCA Service aims to deliver tangible outcomes to both young people targeted through the YACCA Program and the wider community to which they belong.
Our current programs include
• Maroochydore Court Support - YACCA funding has enabled the IFYS Youth Engagement Program to perform outreach at Maroochydore Juvenile Court each Tuesday afternoon and at Caloundra Murri Court as required. Court Support aims to reduce the incidence of young people re-offending, and to improve their life circumstances.
• Building Futures Flexi School - An alternative education program offering year 10 - 12 school certificates to young people who are disengaged from mainstream schooling. The participants are to be under or at risk of child protection orders or youth justice orders.
• School Aged Mechanics (SAM) Maroochydore State High School -
The SAM program operates one day per week at Maroochydore State High School, catering for year 10 students who are ‘at risk' of disengaging from school.
Students continue their core subjects while involved in this training and are encouraged to participate in further education, training and employment.
SAM Students will:
1. Gain a construction ‘White Card' to ensure they are familiar with relevant Work Place Health and Safety requirements.
2. Complete literacy and numeracy tasks relating to the mechanical work they are doing, with the overall aim of improving the literacy and numeracy levels of each student on the program.
3. Have access to a mentor and three qualified mechanics.
4. Be involved in the process of rebuilding two donated cars and donating the cars, once they have been rebuilt, to a selected person or family from the community in need.
5. Complete two sets of five days work experience in a local mechanics workshop.
6. Complete a first aid course run by the School-Based Youth Health Nurse.
7. Complete a ‘Road Safety' course run by the School-Based Police Officer.
• SunnyKids
A supported, information and referral strategy for families under stress, SCIPS has embedded a SunnyKids worker within the school infrastructure - offering the dual outcomes of supporting children and developing ongoing linkages between the school and community resources.
The parallel development of linkages between the family and community resources and similarly between the school and community resources is key to the program model.
For families, this process has the net effect of providing residual, adaptable strategies to access resources. For schools, the process offers increasing and ongoing access to community support services.
• Girls Only
This project is a collaborative partnership between Beerwah and District Youth and Community Centre (BADYACC), Reconnect, Beerwah State High School and other youth services that have identified young women who are at risk of offending, are offending or have come to the attention of the Behavioural Management Team at the High School.
Core components of the Girls Only program include: skill development, self awareness, drug/alcohol issues, relationships, and some elective topics such as bullying, self esteem, body image and domestic violence. The importance of healthy lifestyles through fitness and nutritional components are also taught and delivered by a qualified fitness trainer, covering topics such as eating disorders, disease, depression, and eating on a budget.
Our model of service delivery
The Caloundra/Maroochydore YACCA service acknowledges young people have differing needs and we operate in a flexible and holistic manner to accommodate individual needs. We work from a strengths-based framework and we focus on identifying and building young people's life-skills and self-esteem to help them create needed change in their lives.
Recent Outcomes
By building on community capacity and value adding to existing services, the Caloundra/Maroochydore YACCA Service has delivered tangible outcomes to both the young people targeted through the funding and the community in which they belong.
• Maroochydore Juvenile Court and Caloundra Murri Court are ongoing support programs that provide improved response in young people attending court through the juvenile justice system.
These programs offer a successful method of in engaging with young offenders and providing support and assistance at a critical point in their lives, as well as linking them with services most able to meet their needs.
In the past 12 months, the Caloundra/Maroochydore YACCA service came into contact with 184 young people in court, supporting them through the court system and assisting them with legal, personal or survival based needs.
• IFYS Building Futures Flexi School provided the opportunity for seven young people, who were involved in the Youth Justice System or completely excluded from mainstream schools, achieve school certificates and increase their living skills. All seven young people completed Building Futures modules. Two completed their year 10 certificate and one gained employment.
Brokerage funding enabled:
• United Synergies to implement the Noosa Court Support Program and allowed a worker to support young offenders through the court system in Noosa.
• The Maroochydore State High School's Hard Yakka Program provided academically challenged 13-14 year olds with the opportunity to stay engaged at school by participating in practical programs that can lead to increased career choices.
The students gained a certificate in first aid, a blue card and attended an adventure based camp at Emu Gully.
Skills taught included:
Interview skills & resume writing
Landscaping
Painting
Concreting
Construction
Mentoring
Keeping a Journal.
Maroochydore State High School have continued to run the Hard Yakka Program in 2010 as it resulted in fewer suspensions and offences and has motivated students to attend school.
• The Spin the Wheel Program, facilitated by Queensland Association of Healthy Communities and Family Planning Queensland, was held at Sunshine Plaza each Thursday night for 12 weeks with a total of 846 contacts with young people.
The Spin the Wheel question game was designed to educate and inform youth about safer partying, sexually transmitted infections and sexual health, blood-borne viruses, effects of drugs, legal issues, referral pathways and legal, healthy relationships.
• Facilitated by Life Bridge, Adventurous Fun Legally, was an activity-based program providing opportunities for 15 young people to participate in and learn alternative, healthy techniques to deal with boredom other than crime.
Activities included:
Go Karts - building, racing and construction
Fishing - quiet and reflection
Football - team spirit and skill
Soccer - team spirit and skill
Tribal games - team spirit, team building and conflict resolution
Skirmish - socialising and creative expression