from yaprap June -July 2011
by Dean Williamson
YAPA Policy & Training Officer
What we did
We met with a series of local services to chat about the challenges of service provision in a rural context. These included Centacare, a multicultural service for new arrivals and refugees in Wagga, and Tirkandi Indaburra, a remote residential service and education facility for young indigenous men.
Both services did amazing work with hard-to-access communities, and had some great success stories to tell, as well as learnings from challenges that they have faced, or continue to face. The passion that both services showed for their communities was inspiring, and we all left feeling warmed by our contact with these services.
YAPA also held a Rural Youth Issues Forum to get a whole heap of service providers together – and over 50 workers attended, by all accounts a fantastic showing of Riverina workers. The day included some consultation activities, presentations by three inspiring and innovative projects in the Riverina, and some fun networking sessions. Trust me, Riverina workers don’t have a problem with energy and commitment – I think I left ‘speed dating’ a little deaf (and I’m a drummer!), and inspired by the workers' commitment to ‘their patch’.
What we heard
Between our consultations at the forum, and our meetings with services, some of the largest challenges identified in rural areas are outlined below. While none of the issues are necessarily specific to youth service provision in a rural context, the following seemed exaggerated by rural conditions, and are worth mentioning and reviewing.
Regional planning and communication: Due to the vast size of the Riverina, regional planning of service delivery becomes really difficult. This is further compounded by the fragmentation of service delivery areas, with no overseeing body. For example, we heard the example of an organisation funded to provide services to young people in three small communities, who was forced to attend three separate interagencies to stay informed and work in collaboration! It was identified that rarely did these interagencies communicate, which resulted in some duplication of services in nearby towns. The resultant outcome was frustration at other services/areas, and a general level of distrust between services, furthered by competitive tendering with no significant regional planning.
All of these issues mean that young people are affected by an inefficient service delivery system – some resources are left under-utilised, while some resources are stretched far too thin. Some workers reported over-working and ‘filling gaps’ in towns, because they didn’t want young people to ‘miss out’, and others reported resources (eg. buses, camps) being under-used due to a lack of communication and cooperation.
All of this suggests that improved models of regional planning and cooperation are required to increase the benefit of services for the areas young people. In areas where resources are scarce and areas to be covered vast, distrust, competition and poor planning only waste time and energy, and further disadvantage young people.
Distance/transport challenges: Obviously, if you are funded to cover a large area, distance is going to be a problem. In extreme instances, some workers reported that the work of an entire day could comprise driving to a remote property to meet with one young person! Almost all services reported offering some level of outreach in rural areas, even if they weren’t funded to do so.
Equally, young people (who often don’t have driver's licences) find it really hard to get around with limited public transport. This affects their ability to access services and puts them in potentially risky situations.
These resourcing issues were again compounded by the regional planning, communication and cooperation issues outlined above.
Other challenges: Other challenges for services or young people included working with schools to holistically support young people, accessing community resources (eg. sporting fields), processes for information sharing under the new Keep Them Safe guidelines, and a lack of training for rural youth workers.
Where to from here?
YAPA will be taking this feedback with us when we talk to the various parties that are stakeholders in youth service provision. This will mean being fed into avenues such as the EIPP Child Youth and Support Models, discussions with various new ministers, chiefs of staff etc. We will also produce some guidelines around regional coordination and interagency best practice to try to help resource the youth sector, as well as some case studies of initiatives that are easy to do that produce good results.
More information
- Dean Williamson
- (02) 9281 5522 ext 5
- policy2@yapa.org.au