Student Wellbeing
School Focussed Youth Service
The School Focused Youth Service is a joint initiative between the Department of Education and the Department of Human Services and complements the increase in support provided to schools in response to the recommendations of the Suicide Prevention Taskforce. The focus of the initiative is the co-ordination of preventative and early intervention strategies for young people, to be delivered through school and community clusters.
The School Focused Youth Service is designed to support effective links between the primary prevention work done by school-based support services within the education sector and the early intervention provided by the community sector.
41 school community clusters have been established across the state to ensure that services are coordinated and responsive to the needs of young people. The 41 service models will be consistent around the state, each with a co-oordinator, and brokerage capacity to respond to gaps in service availability as identified by schools and community. The School Focused Youth Service will link closely to schools and relevant community agencies within each cluster.
The School Focused Youth Service is required to develop close linkages with school support personnel located within Government Schools as well as with Independent and Catholic schools, and community agencies in contact with young people who are no longer connected to the school system. Developing these linkages enables identification of service gaps, development of strategies to respond to those gaps and the provision of a continuum of service intervention.
Core Components
The core components of the School Focused Youth Service, are:
- The establishment of linkages/coordination between youth services (in schools and in the community) which are available to respond to the needs of young people. This includes community mapping, development of services, enhancement of effectiveness of existing services, provision of information about service availability, and the establishment of protocols between services and schools.
- The capacity to purchase services as a result of identification, by the School Focused Youth Service, of current gaps in service availability. This involves the purchase of services through brokerage funds to address current gaps in service availability as identified by the schools and community clusters. Gaps will vary from cluster to cluster according to both the available service mix and the needs for various service types. It should be noted that these funds are limited and will generally be used to support group programs or strategies, rather than individual students. They are not meant to replace the provision of any existing services.
Core Objectives And Anticipated Outcomes
The core objectives of the School Focused Youth Service are to:
- establish collaborative structures and mechanisms between schools and the relevant youth services and community services which support young people, including welfare, health and mental health agencies;
- provide linkages for agencies and schools which have a client base of young people and which directly support young people;
- improve linkages, cohesiveness and integration of service provision for young people displaying 'at risk' behaviours who require support and intervention; and · purchase services to meet gaps in the current service system as identified at the local level.
The anticipated outcomes of the School Focused Youth Service are:
- a significant improvement in addressing the needs of "at risk" young people as a result of effective collaborative structures and mechanisms between schools and relevant community agencies;
- a significant enhancement of the current service system as a result of the identification of gaps and subsequent service purchase.
More information
An evaluation of the School Focused Youth Service operation has been completed and published. The evaluation has demonstrated that the program has made major inroads into meeting its key objectives of assisting existing organisations to work more effectively together and providing better access to services for young people.
For more information about the evaluation, see:
See also the SFYS website (http://www.sfys.infoxchange.net.au/)