from yaprap December 2011-January 2012
by Isabel Seidel
yaprap Feature Writer
Sydney’s north shore is affluent, leafy, green and quiet. Nothing much happens there. Although in recent times the community has been protesting over the building of unit blocks that have been replacing the valuable heritage homes. Sydney’s northern beaches are absolutely beautiful and lend themselves to a ‘Summer Bay’ lifestyle of surfing after school and hanging around the surf club. For some young people it’s an idyllic place to call home.
However, hidden in the community is what some think a growing problem with disaffected young people who are at risk of homelessness and drug and alcohol abuse. StreetWork, a local charity, has been working for over 30 years with young people who are part of the underground, the ones that get overlooked. It is a non-denominational Christian charity which helps at risk 11-to 18- years-olds in the local government areas of Willoughby, North Sydney, Lane Cove, Ku-ring-gai, Hornsby, Manly, Warringah and Pittwater.
The founder of StreetWork, Peter Hobbs, knows the local youth issues and when he founded Streetwork he used to walk the mall to talk to young people who hung out there. Hobbs was doing the streetwork that many youth services don’t have the money to do. The term streetwork refers to youth workers meeting young people in public spaces. It’s this type of youth work that has helped many young people who aren’t receiving any services. And in Sydney’s wealthy north it appears that organisations such as StreetWork are in demand. Jennifer Anderson, Mayor of Ku-ring-gai said “Our staff report that the number of young homeless people in Ku-ring-gai has risen significantly in recent years. Our area certainly isn’t immune to the impacts of issues such as family breakdown and drug and alcohol abuse”. This comment is also supported by Department of Juvenile Justice Area Manager Dominic van Gestel (both recently quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald).
StreetWork has got a lot bigger since its humble beginnings. It appears to have kept its heart with youth workers still doing outreach work such as hanging out at the mall, juvenile advocacy and responding 24/7 to youth involved in crisis situations. It still provides case management through the Kickstart mentoring program as well as parent and carer support. However, it has developed skills in building programs such as air and soul graffiti art workshops, gym and fitness, streetstylz dance program, bean me up coffee skills program, and Street Duke of Edinburgh – an innovative, street-based application of the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, customised for young people living in difficult circumstances.
So, in a nutshell StreetWork is now able to work intensively with young people instead of having to refer them to other organisations.
I sat in on the informative presentation the CEO, Andrew Crawford and Youth Case Worker Penny Dalgleish gave at the recent YAPA youthwork conference. They spoke about the importance of taking the time to build relationships with young people before any program work begins. I wondered how they did this when some government funding does not give projects enough time to do the relationship-building work with young people. Andrew said that because StreetWork relies heavily on funding from the local community it does give them more flexibility to invest the time in building one on one relationships with young people. And it sounds like they have been doing a good job with such successful outcomes such over 85% of young people completing the Kickstart mentoring program.
With all the hidden youth problems on the north shore and northern beaches it’s great to see an organisation such as StreetWork doing the crisis work as well as the program work for young people. The concept of streetwork is often overlooked by governments wanting to fund outcomes-based programs. The organisation StreetWork has kept its soul by simply going to where young people are and finding the homeless and disaffected youth and building the relationships that young people are crying out for.
Due to the growing number of young people accessing StreetWork programs they are currently seeking more volunteers. So, check out their website or email Amber Davies if you’re interested in volunteering.
More information
- www.streetwork.org.au
- Amber Davies, Team Leader, 02 9419 7559 or amberd@streetwork.org.au
- StreetWork Kickstart – yaprap April 2008 - www.yapa.org.au/youthwork/stories/kickstart.php
- It’s not all easy street on the north shore – smh.com.au 9/9/11