Our approach
How we help
YSAS is a community service organisation committed to creating the conditions in which young people, with their families and communities, can overcome and be strengthened by adversity. We believe everyone deserves the opportunity to live a healthy and fulfilling life. We know young people are just doing their best to cope and manage as best they can with the resources they have available.
When young people are provided with the right resources and opportunities from YSAS and others, we know they can overcome their problems and be better placed to face new ones when they come up.
YSAS practitioners meet young people and families on their terms and facilitate access to useful, culturally-meaningful resources and opportunities that enable them to:
- Prevent harm
- Meet their needs
- Fulfil their aspirations
- Deal effectively with life stressors that lead to health and behavioural problems
YSAS programs and services are designed specifically to meet the needs of young people who are, or who are at risk of, experiencing substance-use related harm, difficulties with mental health and criminal justice system involvement.
We recognise the strengths that young people, families and communities already have, and at the same time understand that they are often experiencing serious problems. We intervene as early as possible to prevent problems from escalating and becoming entrenched.
YSAS provides practical support and evidence-based clinical care through outreach, care coordination, residential programs and a range of community-based services. Across Victoria, we also collaborate with other service providers in the best interests of the young people, families and communities that we serve.
With all that said, our relationships with young people and families will always be at the heart of our work.
Resilience-based practice at YSAS
Resilience-based practice is an approach that focuses on helping young people access the resources, relationships and opportunities they need to meet their needs, cope with challenges and achieve their goals.
It recognises that harmful behaviours often develop as ways of coping with adversity. Instead of judging young people, practitioners work alongside them to understand what is driving those behaviours and support safer, more positive alternatives.
At YSAS, this approach is person-centred, trauma-responsive and strengths-based, with a focus on building safety, stability, connection, participation, identity and agency.
The Resilience-Based Practice Framework is a reference document for workers outlining how YSAS supports young people and families through resilience-based practice.
Our commitments
Inclusion and equity for people of all backgrounds and identities
We understand that every person is unique. We are proactive in ensuring that young people of all backgrounds and identities are welcomed and have the opportunity to participate equally in the life of our organisation and the communities in which we provide our services. While it is not possible to fully comprehend the complexity of all human experience, we learn so much through including and building relationships of mutual trust and respect with First Nations peoples, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ folk, people of colour, people from various cultural backgrounds and those who have particular religious affiliations and beliefs. We are also committed to gender equity.
Co-creating solutions and outcomes with young people and families
YSAS adopts a service user partnership approach. This is characterised by shared power and participation in decision making at all levels, including the individual, organisational and systemic. The lived and living experience of young people and families is diverse and their knowledge and expertise of what matters and works best for them and their peers is valued highly alongside other forms of knowledge and expertise.
Using the best available evidence to inform our practice
We are committed to implementing evidence-based practice approaches and interventions that work to produce positive outcomes for young people and families. This is achieved by braiding together evidence that is derived from a number of sources including the lived and living experience and expertise of young people and families, practitioner knowledge and judgement, and findings from high-quality research.
Learning and evolving
We ensure that our practice is effective in response to the changing social conditions in which young people develop. We strive to create a culture that supports and reinforces the learning and development of our practitioners. This involves creating the conditions where practitioners feel enabled and supported to ask questions, raise concerns, express opinions and challenge each other to both uphold YSAS values, and fulfil our purpose.
Why some young people are at greater risk
There are a range of risk factors that predispose young people to poor mental health outcomes, alcohol and other drug problems and becoming involved with the criminal justice system:
• Exposure to racism, homophobia, transphobia and discrimination
• Intergenerational poverty and trauma
• Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), including trauma stemming from abuse, neglect and exposure to violence
• Refugee and difficult resettlement experiences
• Learning difficulties and early school disconnection
• History of family attachment issues and conflict
• Highly reactive temperament and other hereditary factors.
If these and other risk factors are not mitigated through the presence of protective factors and addressed in a meaningful way as a young person develops, they will present in the ‘here and now’ as stressors that exacerbate and perpetuate health and behaviour problems. These stressors are known as problem ‘triggers’ and ‘drivers’.
Triggers and drivers become particularly influential in the development of problems and harmful behaviours when young people, families and communities don’t have access to the resources and opportunities they need.
Meeting the unmet needs of young people
Our practice focusses on six domains of need that are critical to all young people’s development:
1. Safety: Protection from harm and the capacity to respond to crisis.
2. Stability: Security and the capacity to meet basic needs.
3. Agency: Capacity to respond to challenges and capitalise on opportunities.
4. Connections: Helpful relationships with people, culture and places.
5. Participation: Engagement in activity that is socially and economically rewarding.
6. Identity: A coherent sense of self and one’s place within their family and community.
Young people and families require a range of meaningful resources and opportunities that can be used to meet these needs and achieve their goals. Resources can be environmental, cultural, beliefs-based or stem from their abilities.
YSAS practitioners employ five key practices within our programs to ensure young people and families can access and make the most of the resources and opportunities they require. Practitioners aim to:
1. Protect: Counter negative and harmful influences and protect existing resources and opportunities from being compromised.
2. Provide: Make necessary resources and opportunities available.
3. Connect: Link young people to necessary resources in their environment and within themselves.
4. Develop: Teach young people and families skills to develop their capacity to achieve their goals and make the most of other resources and opportunities.
5. Advocate: Ensure that resources and opportunities are available to young people, families and communities.
How we know that our work is effective
We monitor the extent to which we are connecting with populations of young people and families who experience serious disadvantage.
The needs and characteristics of each young person and family that use YSAS services are recorded confidentially by our practitioners in the YSAS Client Information System. This information is aggregated and analysed to help us know if we are continuing to engage young people and families experiencing serious disadvantage and to understand more about their difficulties and strengths.
We also monitor and record the number of young people and families of identities and backgrounds that are often discriminated against and excluded from services. Our target populations include young people and families who are:
• From Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds
• From culturally diverse communities, particularly those with refugee and asylum seeker experiences
• LGBTQIA+
And include young people who are:
• In the Out-of-Home Care system
• Experiencing housing instability
• Young people with criminal justice system involvement
• Young people who are disconnected from education and work
Through participation and partnership with young people, families and communities, there are many other ways we learn about our impact. These include input from our:
• YSAS wide and based Youth Advisory Committees
• Annual Youth Partnership Month and Ideas Month activities capturing feedback and advice from young people
• Family and Community Reference Group
• Comprehensive YSAS feedback and complaints system
Our programs and practitioners create the conditions for young people to achieve the following outcomes:
• Greater safety and protection from harm
• Increased stability and capability to cope
• Greater social and economic participation
• Improved connection with family, culture and community
• Improved mental health and well being
• Reduced substance-use related harm
• Reduced involvement with the Criminal Justice System