General Manager’s Report 2020
It is with great privilege that I report to the Management Committee, Members and the Community regarding the achievements of the Gold Coast Project for Homeless Youth for 2019-2020.
In reflection, 2020 has been a unique year requiring foresight, planning and resilience to respond to many challenges that have presented with the worldwide health pandemic, Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic. There has been a constant process of review to determine the most effective way to continue to deliver services for young people and ensure safe practices within the organisation. In total we have supported 198 young people and responded to 998 requests for assistance. Placed based responses allowed us to respond directly to needs of the Gold Coast and ensure that young people had a safe place to retreat to enable self isolation to occur. We saw a reduction in available places within service to maintain health and safety requirements and an increase in our brief interventions to secure accommodation within the community.
We experienced a change in the demand for support. The additional Government Assistance, clearly evidencing that an increase in ongoing income support would influence the decisions that young people made about their accommodation choices. We brace ourselves for the new year where a discontinuation of COVID-19 financial assistance may see a steady increase in requests for assistance. New ongoing challenges relate to responding to borders closure, accessing services, changes to way that education programs are delivered and managing the movement of young people, adding to our everyday challenges of ensuring that young people are informed, safe, maintain contact with family, continue to take steps to their manage mental health and personal hygiene requirements.
It’s been a satisfying year in regard to outcomes. Within the Tenancy & Support Program we have had the capacity to provide support to 198 young people at risk or experiencing homelessness. Our partnership with the Department of Housing and Public Works and Community Housing limited has been successful in rolling out the SPin program throughout the year and we consider that this arrangement has been beneficial to all partners and demonstrates that this program should continue to expand in the near future. Achievements include a greater ability to respond to an increase of requests for support, implementation of brief interventions to place young people in independent accommodation opportunities, expanded life and living skill development, success with assisting young people into training and employment opportunities, seeing an increase in graduations, university placement, traineeships, apprenticeships, and gaining licences. Improved well being associated with mental health, self-development goals, and an increase in social and community connection.
We continue to work towards meeting the organisations objectives set out in the Operation Plan for 2019-2021 which focuses on meeting the changing needs of young people, organisation sustainability, building service capacity – enhancing programs and support services to improve outcomes, promoting affordable housing investment across government and community sectors, investing in partnerships, initiatives and developing our People and Culture.
I would like to express gratitude and acknowledge the Team for maintaining resilience and remaining steadfast through a challenging year to assist young people to achieve outstanding outcomes in this time of unprecedented change. I would also like to thank the Gold Coast Community for the ongoing generosity of spirit and contributions to support young people to achieve their goals, to aspire to reach their full potential and become active members of our community.
Angela Sheeran. General Manager.