Youth Off The Streets is an Australian non-denominational not-for-profit youth organisation. The organisation works with young people and their families and communities in an endeavour to create safety, offer support and provide opportunities to build a positive future. Youth Off The Streets was founded by Father Chris Riley in the 1990s. The organisation now delivers a range of wraparound supports for young people, including crisis accommodation and housing services, independent high schools, alcohol and other drugs counselling, youth justice support, life skills and employment programs, cultural support and community engagement. Father Chris Riley was the CEO of Youth Off The Streets until May 2020, when he transitioned into the role of Founder and was replaced by former Deputy CEO Lex Nadine Lutherborrow. Currently, Judy Barraclough is serving as Youth Off The Streets’ CEO.

History

Youth Off The Streets began as an idea with Chris Riley operating a single food van that provided meals to homeless young people in Kings Cross,

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

. Father Chris Riley then spent the next three decades developing Youth Off The Streets into a "leading non-denominational youth services organisation". In April 1995, Riley started the Dunlea Adolescent Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program in

Merrylands Merrylands is a suburb in Western Sydney, Australia. Merrylands is located west of the Sydney central business district and is in the Local government in Australia, local government area of the Cumberland Council, New South Wales, Cumberland Ci ...

, Western Sydney. As of January 2023, the program is called Dunlea Alcohol and Other Drugs Youth Service. In 1996, Youth Off The Streets opened its first independent high school: Key College, Redfern. Key College caters to young people aged between 14 and 18 who have become disconnected from mainstream education. Youth Off The Streets is now responsible for the management of six accredited independent high schools across Greater Sydney, the Illawarra region and the New South Wales Central Coast. Riley also developed and implemented strategies that were supposed to help young people deal with trauma, abuse and neglect. Several of these strategies – including the Values Education Service Learning Curriculum – have been adopted by schools and government agencies across Australia. As of 2024, Youth Off The Streets offers integrated support services and programs for young people and families, enabled and delivered by approximately 200 staff and 330 volunteers. Additionally, Riley assisted young people overseas in

East Timor Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

after independence in 2002. Following the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time ( UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the sci ...

, Youth Off The Streets helped build an orphanage in

Aceh Aceh ( , ; , Jawi script, Jawoë: ; Van Ophuijsen Spelling System, Old Spelling: ''Atjeh'') is the westernmost Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is located on the northern end of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capit ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. The not-for-profit Youth Off The Streets Overseas Relief Fund was established to work on small projects alongside local partners, providing assistance to children and young people, including housing, education, health and welfare facilities and programs.

Youth services

Homelessness and housing

Youth Off The Streets provides various homelessness and housing support services for young people aged 25 and under. These services include prevention and early intervention support, crisis accommodation in two youth refuges, transitional housing, one-on-one casework support and referrals to other specialist services. Youth Off The Streets also offers life skills programs and

brokerage A broker is a person or entity that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller. This may be done for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neith ...

support so that they may help young people find and keep safe housing. Their Street Walk program provides after-hours practical help and referrals for young people who are at risk of homelessness in Sydney.

Education

Youth Off The Streets operates six independent high schools that are registered and accredited with the New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA). Its learning programs for Years 9–12 are designed to have a flexible approach that responds to the specific needs of students. Its Schooling via Off-campus Learning for At-Risk students (SOLAR) Program at EDEN College in Sydney's Macquarie Fields was created during the 2020

COVID-19 lockdowns During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of Non-pharmaceutical intervention (epidemiology), non-pharmaceutical interventions, particularly lockdowns (encompassing stay-at-home orders, curfews, quarantines, and similar socie ...

. The SOLAR Program seeks to keep vulnerable students engaged with school.

Alcohol and other drugs

Youth Off The Streets’ Dunlea Alcohol and Other Drugs Youth Service aims to help young people in Western Sydney aged 13 to 19 take control of their drug use. The program works with young people and their families and aspires to help them break the cycle of drug misuse, set personal goals and build the foundations for a healthy life.

Mental health support

Youth Off The Streets helps young people to access mental health support services. These services include a specialist Alcohol and Other Drugs Counsellor at its Dunlea service, caseworkers who help young people access the mental health services that are theorised to best support their recovery, and counselling and psychological support services for enrolled students in its independent high schools.

Life skills and personal growth

Youth Off The Streets offers multiple opportunities that are intended to develop the practical living skills and

social skills A social skill is any competence facilitating interaction and communication with others where social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning these skills is called socia ...

that bring about a positive and independent future.

Youth justice

Youth Off The Streets provides one-on-one support and services to young people involved with or at risk of being involved with the justice system. These services include specialist casework,

diversion program A diversion program, also known as a pretrial diversion program or pretrial intervention program, in the criminal justice system is a form of pretrial sentencing that helps remedy the behavior leading to the arrest. Administered by the judicial ...

s, therapeutic pathways and a court support program.

Cultural support

Youth Off The Streets works with

First Nations First nations are indigenous settlers or bands. First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to: Indigenous groups *List of Indigenous peoples *First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...

young people and young people from multicultural backgrounds in ways that are intended to be safe, welcoming and culture-specific. The Cultural Development team works with the organisation to determine that the rights and needs of young people from diverse cultural backgrounds are reflected in its services and programs.

Scholarships, training and employment

Youth Off The Streets supports young people who want to continue their education after high school, gain employment skills, or find a stable job. Its National Scholarship Program has been running since 2004 and provides financial assistance, mentoring and other support to young people engaged in training or further education. Youth Off The Streets is also an approved

Registered Training Organisation A registered training organisation (RTO), in Australia, is an organisation providing Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses to students, resulting in qualifications or statements of attainment that are recognised and accepted by indust ...

(RTO code 41450) and delivers several nationally accredited

vocational education and training Vocational education is education that prepares people for a Skilled worker, skilled craft. Vocational education can also be seen as that type of education given to an individual to prepare that individual to be gainfully employed or self em ...

(VET) courses to enrolled students in its independent high schools.

Community engagement

Youth Off The Streets provides a range of activities and support services in to young people aged 12–25 across Greater Sydney, regional NSW and some areas of Queensland and Victoria. It runs youth spaces in

Blacktown Blacktown is a suburb in New South Wales, Australia, west of the Sydney central business district. It is one of the most multicultural places within Sydney, Greater Sydney. History Before the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, the area of ...

, Merrylands, Weston and Logan, as well as the Koch Centre for Youth and Learning in Macquarie Fields and the Cordeaux Centre for Youth and Learning in the Illawarra.

Street Walk and Food Van

Youth Off The Streets’ Street Walk program runs on multiple nights every week, providing support to homeless and vulnerable young people in Sydney's CBD, Inner West, and surrounding areas. The Food Van operates every night of the year and travels between Darlinghurst and Green Park in Sydney.

Funding

Youth Off The Streets is a registered

charity Charity may refer to: Common meanings * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sha ...

with the

Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) is the regulatory authority for charities and not-for-profit organisations within Australia. The Commission was established in December 2012 as part of the ''Australian Charitie ...

. The organisation receives income from federal, state and local governments, corporate partnerships and fundraising activities.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Youth Off The Streets Catholic Church in Australia 1991 establishments in Australia Catholic charities Social welfare charities Organizations established in 1991 Children's charities based in Australia Homelessness in Australia Homelessness organizations Non-profit organisations based in New South Wales