Open Family Australia provides outreach support and services to young people who are homeless or at-risk of homelessness. We work in Victoria and NSW, providing Assertive Outreach to vulnerable young people in their communities.
What is Assertive Outreach?
Assertive Outreach is a model that offers youth focused services to street frequenting young people in the environments where they congregate. This model of providing comprehensive ongoing support in all aspects of a young person’s life, rather than just concentrating on one issue is successful, as it provides the young person with support from a worker who is available for all their needs and who also works to integrate them into mainstream society.
Our Outreach workers often work out-of-hours, going directly to where the young people are and offering them intensive support. Often a young person may need this support over many months and in some cases years.
Seeing a young person progress from homelessness to finding housing, gaining employment and self worth is a positive example of the kind of results that can be achieved through this model. The ultimate challenge is the continuation of long term support to these young people who have immense potential once they gain the appropriate guidance and support.
Mobile Youth Outreach
Mobile Youth Outreach provides direct outreach support and services to vulnerable young people, frequenting 'hot spots' after hours where socially disenfranchised, at-risk and homeless young people congregate.
Open Family Australia currently operates three mobile youth outreach services:
Six pillars of business
We engage with young people through our Outreach model and other programs through our six pillars of business.
-
Community Ownership Model - providing Outreach support directly into communities
-
Education
-
Business
-
Life Skills - teaching skills to create positive lives
-
Wellbeing
-
Prevention - Preventing young people from falling through the cracks
What We Do