Toowoomba YACCA

Philosophy & Vision

Toowoomba YACCA seeks to develop and implement strategies to address the issues relating to offending behaviour amongst young people.
Through the development and implementation of collaborative programs, Toowoomba YACCA aims to reduce juvenile offending and inspire young people to find themselves and their place in their community.

Characteristics of the area in which we work

Toowoomba is Australia's largest inland regional centre and has a population of over 90,000. The city is located at the eastern edge of the Great Dividing Range and is a major hub for farming communities on the Darling Downs. About 2% of Toowoomba's population identify as Aboriginal and we are experiencing rapid growth in the number of Sudanese and other African people who call our city home.
Toowoomba has very limited free recreational activities for young people and no public meeting place that they can truly call their own. This gap in our social infrastructure leads to a growing boredom for many young people and leaves the way open for offending behaviour to occur.

Activities and services that we provide

Toowoomba YACCA provides a wide range of activities for young people who are at risk of offending or have already offended and may be on youth justice orders. Many have disengaged from learning and are disconnected from family and community, and so we work alongside them to help build protective factors and behaviours into their everyday life.
The C3 Program (Choice, Challenge & Change) is the base model for a variety of projects aimed at demonstrating ways of getting a "buzz" without using substances. The programs provide opportunities for young people to recognise their choices, challenge themselves and make changes in their lives. Activities under this model change to meet current needs and have included:

Girls Group
Community Youth Games
School Holiday Programs
Friday Touch Footy

Recreational activities are provided each school holiday period including:
• Day trips to Emu Gully Adventure Centre - an outdoor adventure centre with activities based on the Kokoda Track
• Arts based activities - graffiti, jewellery-making, painting, sculpture
• Music based activities - drumming, percussion, making instruments
• Indoor and outdoor sports activities
• Cooking workshops

The YACCA Project Co-ordinator also attends schools to provide information to groups of students on subjects such as how to manage bullying behaviour, safe partying, healthy relationships, and support services available to them in the local community.

Our model of service delivery

Toowoomba YACCA works collaboratively with other community agencies, offering innovative and dynamic crime prevention programs to young people within Toowoomba and the surrounding districts. We operate from a strengths-based framework that encourages young people to be involved in the planning process, to be creative and proactive in their thinking and ideas, and to build strong links with their communities.

School and agency visits are an integral part of YACCA's methodology. Keeping young people and agency workers informed and involved in the development of projects is the best way to ensure engagement, so a high priority of our program is regularly connecting with a broad range of people in our community.

Recent Outcomes

• Community responses are developed to address the criminogenic needs of young people.
• Increased number of partnerships between local community agencies which lead to a co-ordinated response to the "at risk" behaviour of young people.
• Young people develop skills to participate positively in their community.
• Young people develop an increased awareness of community support available to them.

Recent Community Development projects

Children's Court Community Liaison program supports young people and their parents through the legal process of appearing at Children's Court.
Toowoomba Youth service has a Memorandum of Agreement with the
Department of Communities in which the functions of the CCCL Worker are to:
• Be the first point of contact for young people and families at court;
• Provide practical information about the courthouse and to facilitate access to their legal representative;
• Provide support in the court room;
• Explain unsupervised order outcomes and/or provide general information about court proceedings;
• Provide information about programs and/or make referrals to other agencies.

The Great Race is a major Toowoomba Youth service event held during Toowoomba's annual Carnival of Flowers. The Race is an exciting and innovative way to get young people at-risk involved in their local community and accessing support and recreational services. It's an ideal event to boost agency profiles within the local community and also provides an opportunity for increased interaction and collaboration between agencies, community organisations and local businesses. 8 teams of 4 young people and an adult supervisor compete in a race around the Toowoomba CBD. Participants must work as a team to complete physical and mental challenges in the fastest time possible. The Race is a full day activity, with teams competing to win big prizes. Staff from more than 30 local agencies, businesses and organizations participated in the two events held to date.
Mobile Youth Space: In collaboration with the Toowoomba Regional Council, we have conducted a survey over 100 young people aged between 13 and 17 years. We asked them where they hang out, why they hang out there, what community based services they are aware of (and whether they access them) and what they would like to access if we were to provide a Mobile Youth Space. We also surveyed service providers to find out what they see as the most pressing needs for the young people they support, and one of the top priorities was for a dedicated youth space. We are currently looking at the possibility of setting up a Mobile Youth Space which will be accessible to Toowoomba and the wider region, and will be seeking funding and dedicated support from community members to make this project a reality.
Love Bites and Love Drunk are two projects currently facilitated in local schools by the Queensland Police Service that the YACCA Project Co-ordinator supports and co-facilitates in collaboration with other support services.