This week was jam packed with agency visits and an incredible road trip along the Great Ocean Road. One of my favorite agency visits was with the Lighthouse Foundation. They are a privately funded organization focused on supporting homeless youth through providing a home, family, and therapy. The age range of the young people that they work with is from 12 to 18, but the average age is 17. This surprised me at first, as I had assumed there would be a greater amount of younger teens involved in the program, but they specifically target their program to the older group. Seventeen is the age that many people begin to be cut off from support from their families, as kids move away from home for the first time. This is an extremely difficult transition period, and as Lighthouse explained their program, multiple names came to mind that could have benefitted from a supportive home that taught relationship and practical life skills. In America, we have recently recognized the need for support for kids who have aged out of the foster care system, but there are a ton of other kids who are kicked out of/choose to leave the house at 17 or 18, and are left to fend for themselves in a world they are unequipped to take on. Many of the organizations this week were focused on young adults, or had a program specifically tailored to this age group, and I think it is a model that our own country could definitely benefit from. This age group is a vulnerable population, as this is when mental health issues are initially brought out. I believe we should be making it more of a priority to reduce stigma and support this population’s needs, as it would significantly increase the health of our greater society.
(By Rachel Neff)
Finding a good source of funding for any organization can be challenge. In the United States, funding is scarce for almost all human resource branches, whether it be social work, public health, mental health, etc. Altough, it seems like Australia’s government also provides little funding to it’s services. From most of the agencies that our class has visited, that funding is mostly private. However, Australians put a lot of care into the mental health and wellbeing of their young people, perhaps more so than Americans. As social workers, we are taught to fix the problem at the source. Imagine walking through the woods and seeing a river with someone yelling for help. You help them out and another person floats down, and another person after that. Why are all these people floating down this river? You run back to the top and see people leaning on this rail and the rail is broken, which causes people to fall into the river, thus needing help. You fix the rail, which fixes the entire problem. Why not fix the problem “upstream,” rather than, “downstream.” When Instead of continually fixing something at a micro level and it breaking repeatively, we should strive to fix it at a macro level and fix the source of the problem. It is frustrating when there are no resources for the problem to even be fixed.
Funding is important!! How do you buy a house with no money? How do you start a business with no training? How do you drive with no lessons? The basic foundation is missing and that is detrimental to the system, delivery, and logistics.
(By Vy Do)