from YAPRap February 2008
by Melanie Conlon, YAPRap Feature Writer
Community Links
Wollondilly Shire is located 75 km south west of the Sydney CBD and boasts a huge geographical area of around 2560 km2. More than half of Wollondilly is national park and water catchment areas. Wollondilly is classified as a rural area and when you drive out there, beautiful open spaces, reserves, ranges, plains, bushland and waterways catch your eye. Boasting a population of around 41,000, the area is highly represented by families and children. You might have heard of areas such as Picton, Bargo and Tahmoor which are the larger townships in Wollondilly.
Like most rural areas, services are often limited for families, children and young people. In rural areas there are often issues such as social isolation, lack of public transport facilities and lack of social services. Community Links is one of the only services in the area to cater for the needs of young people and their families.
Community Links have 3 teams to service the community including a casework team, a community development team and a youth team. The case work team comprises staff that provide support to young people and their families on issues such as parenting, domestic violence, mental illness etc. The community development team provides school holiday activities, anger management groups, parenting programs, Aboriginal and cultural support, adult education groups and more. Finally the youth team provide services to young people aged 11-24 and help with accommodation, problems with school, mental health, drug and alcohol issues, problems with their family, social isolation and much more.
Life stuff
Life stuff is a living skills program run by Community Links Wollondilly in partnership with Picton High School. Rachelle Barber is the Living Skills Project Officer and the Youth Development Officer for Community Links and she spoke about the program and her participants proudly.
How it started
The Community Links team realised that there was a need to help young people who were leaving school early, before completing their School Certificate. They then applied for funding with Macarthur Area Assistance Scheme to assist these young people to further their education. Once the funding was granted, Rachelle planned and developed the program and got it started. After a few months, she realised that it may be beneficial to run ‘Life Stuff' as a partnership with the local School. She then approached Picton High School with the idea and the partnership was born. Rachelle said it took a while to build their participants, however once a few young people went through the program and the school saw the results, the referrals started flowing.
The program has now been in operation for 2 years and they have run 3 programs a year. Currently they have been funded for 4 years and hope that it will continue after that time. Rachelle says the partnership has been invaluable. It meets the needs of both partners with a common goal of helping more young people complete their School Certificate.
How to get young people in the door
As with most youth focused programs, the most challenging aspect seems to be recruiting young people to participate in the fantastic programs that are developed. For Community Links, their partnership with Picton High School, has helped to overcome this barrier. She said it is the hardest to initially get the young people in, but once they turn up for the interview they don't turn back.
Picton High School has the opportunity to refer young people into the program who are at risk of disengaging from mainstream education. The young person can use this opportunity if they want to pursue their education or look for alternatives. In the end, it is up to the young person, if they want to participate or not. Katrina, the School Counsellor at Picton High School reported that the school supports and advertises this program to students and parents and then liaises with Community Links.
Rachelle said that since their program has become well known in the community they have also had parents making referrals to the program. She said this is great as they like to involve parents with the program as much as possible and parental support can be vital to the young person's education.
The program parameters
‘Life stuff' runs 3 days a week from Community Links at Tahmoor and goes for 8 weeks. It runs in school hours from 10am to 2pm. Many of the young people come to this program 3 days a week and remain at school 2 days per week. There are usually 6-8 participants per program and around 40 young people have participated so far.
Once the young people come to their first session they are involved with how the rest of the program runs. Rachelle said that she thinks it works so well because the young people own the program and are involved every step of the way. From the first week, the young people discuss their goals in life and employment and then work out how to overcome obstacles to achieve their goals. Throughout the program, Rachelle reminds the young people about their goals to keep them on track. One session is spent on developing an Art work that represents their goals which they can take home and put up as a constant reminder of what they want to achieve.
Rachelle said that the young people own the program by picking activities to do, such as the recreational outing. They are encouraged to plan and budget this activity and have a say in how all other sessions run.
Week to week
Some of the sessions at Life Stuff include, budgeting, cooking, study skills, self esteem and confidence, Resume writing, First Aid, Nutrition, healthy relationships, legal rights, drug and alcohol awareness and much much more. These activities sound educational but they are also a lot of fun. Rachelle asks the young people what they want to learn in these sessions and then organises this with the tutors.
Rachelle also organises other partners to become involved in the program to help the young people understand the services available to them inside and outside of their local area. For example services such as Macarthur Legal Aid, University of Western Sydney, Traxside and alcohol and drug workers come in to Community Links and run informative sessions of interest to the young people. Young people are then provided with an opportunity to self-refer to these services.
Why it works
Rachelle believes that this program works because of the diversity of the information presented. She said that because the young people own the program it helps. Also, the development of their goals and obstacles motivates the young people to realise their dreams. Within the program the young people are not judged and they get to learn what they want to learn. The setting is comfortable and if the participants are getting fed up or hot headed they are able to leave the room if needed and take a break. Rachelle reported that this has meant that behaviour has not been a problem for her within the group, even though some of these students were at risk of expulsion from school for poor behaviour and attitude.
The benefits are long lasting
For Rachelle the most rewarding aspect of this fantastic program is seeing the young people have fun and make long lasting friendships. She reported that she has seen some participants find direction and sees them working towards achievable goals. She thinks that this has contributed to their change in attitude when some of them go back to school as they have a reason to continue with their education once a goal is set.
What happens next?
Rachelle commented that it is often a shame that the program only runs for 8 weeks as she loves to see the change in some young people. After they complete the program, many young people go back to mainstream school, however some of them move into Apprenticeships or TAFE education instead. It seems that Rachelle helps these participants to meet their needs and work out what it will take for them to reach their potential.
The school's perspective
Katrina reported that many of the students become more settled at school due to strategies and tools learnt at ‘Life stuff'. Two success stories were mentioned. For example, one male student was continually being suspended for poor behaviour in 2006. After completing the program, he has not been in any trouble at school throughout 2007. What an achievement!
Another story mentioned was that of a female student who was also being suspended continually for similar reasons. This young lady was at risk of expulsion. She successfully completed the ‘Life stuff' program and is now enrolled in another alternative education program.
Obviously from these results, Picton High School must be happy about the opportunities these partnerships present and are always on the look out for bigger and better things to do. Katrina excitedly mentioned that the next partnership program to hit the school is the ‘Rock and Water' program run between Picton High School and Community Links, made possible by generous funding from IMB (Illawarra Mutual Building Society).
More information
Rachelle Barber
02 4683 2776
rachelle@communitylinks.org.au
Standing Strong
Standing Strong is a partnership program run between Community Links and Picton High School. Community Links approached the school over 18 months ago and discussed what the school students needed, what could be provided and the program evolved from there.
The program was initiated to meet the needs of the students concerning self esteem, low self confidence, bullying, communication skills and conflict management to name a few. Katrina (the School Counsellor from Picton High) mentioned that the program is about empowering young people and a process whereby the young people learn responsibility. Larry Whipper and John Bartle from Community Links predominantly work with Katrina Langhorn, to organise the program within the School.
Why it works
Larry, John and Katrina strongly believe that the program works due to the flexibility and evolving nature of the program. Larry commented that it is a “living and growing” program that adapts to meet the changing needs of Picton High School, Community Links and the students. Their most difficult obstacle to date was finding the right space at the school, however their positive attitude has meant that any challenge is overcome quickly.
The program parameters
‘Standing Strong' can have up to 15 young people in a group at a time. They separate the boys and girls into separate groups as they believe the students tend to learn some of the concepts differently. The group is held for 1 school period a week (around 50 minutes) for 2 terms.
The group often takes referrals from Year Advisors, teachers, the welfare team or the School Counsellor (Katrina). The student is then interviewed and accepted based on the young person's motivation to attend and their understanding of what issues to work on. Larry says this works really well and most students do realise that there is something to work on such as bullying, poor behaviour or anger management.
Rewarding young people who are often not rewarded
It seems that this program is able to work with the students on real issues that occur for them every day such as bullying, harassment and poor communication skills. They are then shown strategies to deal with these issues at school and in their home environment. Katrina commented that an awards ceremony is held at the end of the program and sometimes this may be the only time that parents have seen their children receive an award or be recognised in a positive way at school. This is a big achievement since many of them were getting into trouble before the program. As you can imagine this would in turn have a positive effect on the students who complete the program. Katrina reported that many of these students were previously getting into trouble or were having difficulties.
The award ceremony is held at the Community Links Office which means that parents, teachers and young people can be exposed to the other wonderful programs, workers and services that Community Links provides. It is yet another way that the partnership can benefit the community by advertising to the community what resources are available for use such as family counselling, case management, parenting programs and school holiday activities. This is a very important tool in a remote area as access to services is often limited for most families.
What have the benefits been?
Katrina said that the feedback from the school has been positive and that the Executive Principal has advocated strongly for the program. She said that often not hearing about the problem behaviours of some of the students is a good sign that their behaviour has improved significantly, I guess the old saying goes ‘No news is good news' and that seems to be how it works with young people and their behaviour.
Both Katrina and the Community Links team are hoping to evaluate the program in the future and they think they will achieve this via pre and post assessments as well as written feedback from the teachers, youth and parents to gauge how the students have gone. They may also look at objective factors such as school attendance, disciplinary action and suspensions.
How other schools and community groups can start
Either local high schools or community youth organisations can approach each other and discuss related concerns for school students. Katrina's advice was to initially make the connection and then look at the needs of the young people. A flexible attitude is also what is needed to ensure that the needs and philosophies of both services are met.
One of the hardest things for many youth services is getting the young people in the door to run fantastic programs that have been funded. Well, this is a great way to run the programs developed, find a ready made audience and make some valuable community connections.
If you think it is hard to get youth into programs in the city, try getting them into your service in a remote area such as Wollondilly where public transport is limited and many parents are arriving home late after an arduous trip into the city for work. This seems like a great way to do it.
What to be aware of
One thing that all parties agreed on is that youth services need to be aware of the many processes involved with working in partnership with a Government High School. Memorandums of understanding may need to be drafted, risk assessments approved and every bit of paperwork takes time to go up and down the chain of command. John commented that communication is the key here and if all parties concerned know the deal and are prepared to be flexible, all can be overcome.
John recommended that community agencies gain the support from the School Principal and then work with whomever is willing to drive the program within the school, whether that be the Counsellor, Deputy Principal or Principal.
What do the students say?
Most importantly it is the students who can benefit from these types of programs in the school. I spoke to 3 boys and 3 girls who are currently involved in ‘Standing Strong' and they were eager to report how much they enjoyed it.
The girls were Renee, Cody and Karen. They are in Years 7 and 8 at Picton High School. Karen commented that the program has helped her communicate with her parents and get along better with her siblings. Cody reported that she used to have problems with anger but now she has learned to walk away and keep calm. Renee said ‘Standing Strong' has helped her to understand other people and handle bullies. She said that her confidence has grown and she feels like she can handle herself better than before the program.
The boys interviewed were Guy, Damon and Jacob. Guy who is in Year 7 reported that he has also grown confidence since starting the program and he has noticed big differences in how he manages his anger. Damon, who is in Year 9, said that he used to get stressed a lot and fight with his brother but since ‘Standing Strong' he hardly fights with his brother and he said that his Mum has noticed the difference. He said the best part of the program is learning how to deal with anger.
Jacob is in Year 7 and he said he used to fight often with his brothers and other kids at school. Since the program, Jacob reported that he plans to move out of the behaviour class at school so that he can start learning more. His advice to other young people is to ignore bullies and get on with life which sounds like some pretty mature advice to me.
As you can see there are many benefits of developing partnerships with local schools and this is magnified for rural and remote communities such as Wollondilly. Now all you have to do is get the funding for the programs and have a chat with your local school to get started. It's that easy!!
Larry from Community Links would like to thank Picton High School, Vinnies Youth Housing (St Vincent De Paul Society), Sunnataram Forest Monastery, Wollondilly Council, DOCS, ICAHMS, Camden High School and Elderslie High School who have all supported and helped these programs grow to what they are today.
More information
Larry Whipper or John Bartle
Community Links
02 4683 2776
