Opening the Doors

Working with rural & geographically isolated young people

Strategies

Transport
There are a number of strategies that your service can adopt to address transport barriers including:

• Organise your events and programs around public transport times.
• Hold your events close to the public transport that does exist.
• Negotiate with your local Community Transport Scheme to provide transport for young people, particularly in their 'off peaks' such as weekends, nights and special events.
• Develop joint programs with other local youth services that have a minibus service for young people.
• Provide mobile versions of your services to rural and geographically isolated communities. For example many organisations are now purchasing buses or box trailers that they can convert into mobile centres.
• Have a clear policy about whether your service can transport (car or minibus) individual young people where appropriate. Ensure that parents and young people are aware of the policy.
• Consider whether your service is able to cover the costs of public transport. For example a bus pass or taxi vouchers for larger groups of young people. Include these arrangements in your transport policy.
• Seek funding to hire minibuses for special events and school holiday activities.
• Talk to the transport or road safety officer at your local council about other initiatives you may be able to develop.
• Work with your local youth network or community safety committee to lobby for improvement and expansion of public transport services.

Confidentiality
Develop a clear confidentiality policy that states when you may need to disclose personal information (eg. if the young person or someone else may be in immediate serious danger). YAPA has a model privacy policy that you can adapt at www.yapa.org.au/youthwork/modelpolicies. Advertise your confidentiality policy in your promotional material and at your service. When young people first contact your service take the time to explain your policy.

If you have more than one staff member, avoid a situation where a worker providing intensive support personally knows the young person, their friends or their family. If this is not possible, raise the issue immediately with the young person, assuring them that whatever they say will be kept private and confidential as outlined in your confidentiality policy.

Consider the location of your service or program: Is it in a busy street where everyone can see who goes in and out? Or is it in a location where it is not immediately obvious who is accessing the service, or what the service is? Sometimes several programs and services operate out of the one building. Not only does this have the advantage of cost saving, but it is also less obvious to the general public what service a person entering the building is accessing.

Consider the way in which you advertise the service. Sometimes discretion can make the young person feel safer in accessing the service.

In some situations, and if your organisational policy allows, you can offer to meet a young person at a neutral location off site. Ask the young person to suggest a location where they will feel safe and private.

Communicate with the broader community about the importance of confidentiality and how this assists young people to get the help they need.

When considering how to create a feeling of privacy in your organisation, think about what would have worked for you when you were a teenager.

Knowledge about services
Be creative in the ways you let young people know about your service. Consider the way most young people in the community find out information. Is it through the local newspaper, the school newsletter, email, the shopping centre bulletin board, postcards on the local skateboard shop counter, or by word of mouth? Many young people don't read newspapers. Many young people in rural areas can't pop down to the local shopping centre to read a bulletin board.

Useful places to promote your service include:

• local radio outlets
• pamphlets received through the mail
• rural newspapers such as The Land
• the internet
• services which already successfully outreach to rural communities
• shops in rural communities.

Develop a communication strategy. Determine who it is you wish to target and the best way of communicating with them. If you are unsure (or even if you are sure!) ask the young people themselves. They will soon let you know where they get their information from. Ask them how they get information without the rest of their community knowing they have done so. Once you have determined your strategy, and its budget (if any), begin a multi-pronged strategy.

Network with people who work in areas that young people frequent, such as   the local fast food outlet. In one part of the Nepean, a service station has become the 'hot spot' for young people late at night. The attendant has requested pamphlets and information to pass onto the young people as the need arises. Collaboration between community services and businesses can be a very powerful way of increasing information sharing.

Other tips
Check the demography of the areas you wish to target. Some isolated areas in the Nepean have very few young people. Ensure that you are not doing the hard sell to young people who don't exist! Be strategic with your outreach.

Service models that have been developed for metropolitan areas should not be directly transferred to a rural or regional setting. Get local communities involved in the planning and management of services to ensure an appropriate fit.

Develop partnerships with many different services, eg. schools, school counsellors, local area health services, police, Department of Education home school liaison officers, youth workers, sporting groups etc. By working together duplications and gaps can be identified.

If there are a number of part time workers employed in a location, explore the option of joining together to fund a fulltime multi-skilled outreach worker. The worker may then be able to deal with a large variety of issues, making them and their services more accessible for young people.

Ensure that your service is open the hours that are advertised. Young people are not likely to travel a long way if they are unsure that the service will be open when they arrive.

Ensure that your service is open at times that are suitable to young people, ie. some time outside of school and work hours. Young people in rural and regional areas may need extra time to get to the service after school. Talk to the young people about what hours work best for them, and negotiate this with your management and funding body.

Ensure that young people have a voice in the project or service. This makes the service relevant, and provides an opportunity for young people to determine how the service can best assist them.

Speak with other services that successfully outreach to rural communities about the strategies and communication methods they use. Adopt some of these best practice strategies or work in partnership to deliver or promote programs.

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