POLICY BRIEFING NOTE 4 INVESTING IN OUR FUTURE: SUPPORTING YOUNG PEOPLE SUMMARY • Youth educational disengagement, underemployment, and unemployment are a cost to the ACT community, both socially and economically. • The discontinuation of the nationally funded Youth Connections service at the end of 2014 has left a major gap in assisting young people to re-engage with education, training or employment. There is also a lack of community-based therapeutic counselling models for young people and their families, which contributes to at-risk young people falling through the cracks. • YWCA Canberra supports young people and their families in Canberra through a range of programs. We deliver the Circles of Support counselling program, operate the Mura Lanyon Youth Community Centre and YWCA Canberra Clubhouse, and support young people in Tuggeranong through a range of targeted outreach programs. • Resources are needed for community-based counselling services for at-risk young people and their families.
SUPPORTING VULNERABLE YOUNG PEOPLE MATTERS Youth educational disengagement, underemployment, and unemployment come at a cost to the ACT community, both socially and economically. In recent years, the youth unemployment rate in the ACT has been steadily growing, with 11.4 percent of 15-24 year olds unemployed at August 2015. This is more than double the overall unemployment rate for ACT (4.8 percent). One in four people who experience homelessness in the ACT, and one in three at risk of becoming homeless, are aged 12 to 24.i In ACT schools, children and young people experiencing poverty and social and educational disadvantage are often hidden or unacknowledged. In terms of educational outcomes, there is a persistent and widening gap for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds compared to those from more affluent families. The ACT is one of the most poorly performing jurisdictions when it comes to equity in educational outcomes for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.ii
While schools struggle to support students who are re-engage with education, training or employment. disadvantaged and/or at-risk of disengagement, The Youth Connections program consistently the lack of adequately resourced youth and delivered positive outcomes for young people in community support services are having profound the ACT. It provided tailored case management for consequences for those who drop out of education. young people, taking into account their individual Almost half of all early school leavers find vulnerabilities and barriers to accessing education themselves on the margins of the labour force, or employment opportunities. The Program worked either in part-time or casual jobs or out of work with around 350 young people in the ACT each altogether. Some will face ongoing unemployment year, and proved highly successful.iii Six months and will be more likely to suffer poorer health, be after leaving the program, an average of 93 socially isolated, or even find themselves in trouble percent of young people were still engaged in some with the criminal justice system. This will adversely kind of training, education or employment; after impact on their capacity two years, 89 percent to fully participate in remained engaged.iv society. Since Youth Connections While schools struggle to support Young people who ceased, there has been students who are disadvantaged leave school early often no comparable program and/or at-risk of disengagement, experience complex implemented, placing and interconnected young people who are the lack of adequately resourced barriers to remaining disengaged, or at risk youth and community support in school, both within of disengaging, in an services are having profound and beyond the school increasingly precarious gate. These include position. Schools are consequences for those who drop learning disorders and not equipped to fill out of education. underdeveloped literacy this gap, and there is a and numeracy skills, pressing need to invest bullying, low self-esteem, in intensive programs and a combination of low-expectations and limited modelled on the Youth Connections program. adult support. Difficulties beyond the school gate The Parliamentary Agreement for the 9th are often experienced as causal or compounding Legislative Assembly (Parliamentary Agreement) factors. Crucially, none are ‘pull’ factors; most includes a commitment to ‘employ an additional 20 students do not leave for greener pastures, but due school psychologists over the term to strengthen to a lack of support. mental health and wellbeing support in our schools, strengthen community based counselling services THE CURRENT POLICY ENVIRONMENT for children and young people, and implement a streamlined referral process that can be utilised by The discontinuation of the nationally funded Youth all schools’.v Connections service at the end of 2014 has left a major gap in assisting young people to
OUR ROLE IN SUPPORTING YOUNG PEOPLE YWCA Canberra delivers Circles of Support, a counselling service for children and young people age eight to 15 years, and their families. Our counsellors use a relationship-based therapeutic model, and are extremely flexible in the way that they deliver the service. We provide centre-based counselling as well as outreach, according to the needs of the clients. In 2015-16 Circles of Support provided over 600 hours of counselling to 65 people from 39 families. Common issues experienced by young people in the COS program are disengagement from school, violence in the family home, self-harm and suicidality, depression, anxiety and other mental health issues and disability. The Mura Lanyon Youth and Community Centre (MLYCC) plays an important role in the local community by providing myriad opportunities to engage in social, cultural, recreational and educational activities. Our MLYCC team is committed to promoting community self-determination, ownership and empowerment through different community development opportunities. Our Youth Engagement team also work with vulnerable, at-risk young people in the Tuggeranong region. YWCA Canberra also operates the YWCA Canberra Clubhouse, with over 170 young people now signed up as members. The Clubhouse is a high tech digital studio where Tuggeranong youth collaborate with industry mentors to design, create and pursue their passions. The ultimate goal of the program is to increase the number of at-risk young people employed in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics areas.
POLICY ROADMAP FOR ACTION
Therapeutic counselling services play a vital role in supporting vulnerable young people and preventing It is imperative that the ACT Government take problems occurring or escalating. It is imperative action to ensure vulnerable and ‘at-risk’ young that funding is increased to ensure young people people receive the support and opportunities they and their families can access timely and responsive desperately need. services, and that such services are supported to While the factors relating to the disengagement work across directorates and service sectors. of young people School counselling is are complex and important, however interconnected, when we recognise that the provided with adequate It is imperative that funding is needs of many children learning, wellbeing and and young people are increased to ensure young people practical support, young complex and need to people can flourish. A and their families can access timely be addressed within lack of resources and and responsive services, and that the context of the flexible learning options family. School-based such services are supported to within the ACT education initiatives may also work across directorates and system means that many exclude young people schools do not have service sectors. already disengaged from the capacity to support education or dealing students experiencing with difficulties such as disadvantage to stay in bullying at school. It is school. These difficulties therefore critical that services provide a holistic are compounded by the withdrawal of the Youth approach, are offered both inside and outside Connections program and the widening inequalities the school system, and work in partnership with that exist within many ACT schools. community services beyond the school setting.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS That the ACT Government demonstrates its ongoing commitment to supporting young people by: • Dedicating the same amount of funding to community-based counselling services for at-risk young people and their families, as that committed to the additional school psychologists in the Parliamentary Agreement. This will ensure that children not attending school do not fall further behind. • Working with community-based counselling providers to develop innovative models for community-based family oriented counselling services for at-risk young people.
REFERENCES i Sawa, Mark, ‘More than a third of Canberra’s homeless aged 25 or under’, Canberra Times, 20 April 2015, www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/more-than-a-third-of-canberrashomeless-aged-25-or-under-20150418-1mnudb.html#ixzz3pLn8apOZ ii Roberts, P, & Leonard, S, (2013). ‘PISA results show ACT schools fare poorly in teaching disadvantaged’. Canberra Times. accessed 5 October 2015, http://www.canberratimes. com.au/comment/pisa¬results¬show¬act-schools¬fare¬poorly¬in¬teaching¬disadvantaged¬20131209¬2z1xa.html iii Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), (2013). National Partnership on Youth Attainment and Transitions. Australian Capital Territory Annual Report. iv (2014). Senate Select Committee into the Abbott Government’s Budget Cuts: Interim Report. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_ Business/Committees/Senate/Scrutiny_of_Government_Budget_Measures/Budget_Measures/~/media/Committees/budgetcuts_ctte/First_Interim_Report/report.pdf v The Parliamentary Agreement for the 9th Legislative Assembly
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