Tamworth Youth Care (TYC), established in 1983, is a non-profit organization focused on preventing homelessness among youth in the Tamworth and Gunnedah regions by providing various accommodation options and early intervention strategies. Key aims include reducing family breakdowns, the need for crisis accommodation, and supporting families and young people in transitional housing. The organization has seen an increase in female clients and is addressing barriers to engagement while actively working on innovative approaches to improve familial support and reduce instances of youth homelessness.

2. TYC Background
TYC was established in 1983 as a non-profit, community
based organisation, whose aims include improving the
range of accommodation options for Young People who are
homeless or at risk of becoming homeless in the Tamworth
region as well as Gunnedah.
In the first few years, Tamworth Youth Care operated as a
Youth Refuge, providing Crisis Accommodation and Support.
As the need for diverse accommodation options for Young
People increased, Tamworth Youth Care expanded its
services to provide various accommodation options and
outreach services for Young People who are homeless or at
risk of becoming homeless, including Crisis Short Term
Accommodation at the Refuge, Medium to Long Term
Supported Accommodation and Outreach Service to Clients
in the community to enable them to achieve independence
or remain living with their families.

3. Establishing Demand
Over a number of years it began to become quite clear that there
was a need for Early intervention/Prevention.
TYC would receive calls and referrals relating to young people
displaying challenging behaviours which we thought quite normal
, however because of other marriage, family, financial & AOD
issues parents were not able to cope. This resulted quite often in
the young person coming into the refuge. At times TYC was at
capacity with clients that were not necessarily our primary
homeless clients and this took away our time to work with our
primary target group.
We also found that young people leaving the refuge without
support, either back into their homes or into transitional housing
were also having difficulties. Which often led to young people
returning to crisis care.

4. Early
Intervention/Prevention
Early Intervention to our service and client group relates to three
areas and focuses on early intervention/prevention of
homelessness.
First: Intervention assisting families from breakdown which would
result in the young person becoming homeless.
Secondly: supporting young people , their family, their carers &/or
and other relevant people that may be involved with their
accommodation – caravan park owners , boarding placements etc.
Thirdly: supporting young people in transitional housing, rent, bill
payment, electricity, noise & disturbance

5. .
Aims and Objectives
Aims:
•To introduce a focused approach to prevention/early intervention.
•To decrease clients need to enter crisis accommodation
•To reduce family breakdowns
•To relieve the pressure on refuge staff by reducing refuge client numbers
Objectives:
•Reduce family breakdown
•Reduce client numbers in refuge
•Healthier families.
•Healthier staff
.

6. Developing a Model
Most agency interventions with troubled families fit within standardized methods of
responding to family conflict.
These are individual counseling with either the young person or their carers,
family therapy, mediation and/or mentoring aimed at supporting primarily the
young person. What approach (if any) is taken is dependent on a few interlocking
factors such as
1. The willingness of the young person and their family to engage with services and
the type of service they initially approach.
2 The professional background and experience of the assessor
3. The availability of services and the level of service that may be provided by these
services both in terms of specialization or length of intervention and any waiting
times that may be attached.

7. Service Delivery
We needed to consider the target group and their families as to the level of
engagement we would desire. What ability did the families have to come to our
office, did they have the resources & motivation to attend appointments.
After these considerations, we decided that phone contact would the most
appropriate method for both the clients and TYC, however they have the choice in
which method suits them.
This would alleviate most of the issues as well as allowing for contact to be when
and wherever the client was at that moment.
As young people can often have difficulties speaking face to face to workers phone
contact was another way to break down barriers. The use of Facebook has also
been useful to allow young people to be open and honest.
Clients /families are able to debrief with the EIP staff and allowing the clients to
talk at length regarding their issues is one way of assisting them. Giving young
people and families simple but effective strategies to use is another.

8. Service Delivery
At this level of training caseworkers cannot be expected to undertake roles
as professional family therapists or mediators yet at the same time Early
Intervention process still needs to make a clearly defined contribution to the
family.
The model therefore will follow a short term casework approach that aims at
identifying and clarifying issues (assessment) and suggesting strategies for
resolution (intervention and/or referral) when working with these families.
Brief (up to 6 occasions) follow up would monitor the families use of the
suggested strategies are monitored as to their effectiveness. In best case
scenarios where the issues are not too entrenched or severe this worker
support of the family may be sufficient in itself to resolve or manage the issues
and thereby prevent a further breakdown in the family.
When strategies are ineffective or of only little help due to more complex
emotional and social issues the worker could assist the family to identify these
barriers and encourage them to seek more assistance. The caseworker would
not be expected in these instances to resolve these issues but would be
expected to outline a plan of action that the family might follow.

9. Barriers
The main barriers that have been faced through this program are:
• Lack of engagement once the crisis has subsided
• Parents or young people not answering or rejecting their calls
• Parents are expecting change straight away
• Parents not being consistent with the strategies they are trying to
implement in the home.

10. Outcomes and Statistics
Gender
Males
Females
Since June 2010 we have had 67 clients enter the program, 19 of them male and 48
female. This seems pattern seems to be on the rise with more females entering the
program than males.
This in turn, has reduced the amount of young people utilizing the refuge. I believe that
as many as 50 of these clients would have ended up in the refuge. This has helped keep
beds open for those who are in an actual homeless environment.

11. Outcomes and Statistics
Referrals
TYC - 18
Centrelink - 5
Police - 9
Young Person - 3
Relatives - 17
Women's Refuge - 4
Psychologist - 2
Mental Health - 3
School Counsellor - 6

12. DDD
Locally recognised Youth Worker, Karen Matthews in 2010 made a
major breakthrough in youth work when she diagnosed after many
years of research a problematic parenting disorder.
“DISCIPLINE DEFICIT DISORDER”
Karen found if a parent suffers from this illness it can lead to
behavioural problems in children. Issues such as bad attitudes, poor
hygiene, lying, non-school attendance, absconding and in sever cases
homelessness.
Karen and her team at TYC are in the early stages of finding a
cure, which should come in pill form.
However they are not optimistic of this cure being available anytime
soon.

13. THE END