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Reconnect

During the past 12 months there has been an increased demand for Reconnect counselling and support and most of those young people have been presenting with more complex needs than in previous years.

This escalation in complexity and referrals for service was a direct impact of pressures on young people and families as a results Covid-19, including lockdown restrictions.

…practitioners leaned towards less conventional ways to engage with young people and stakeholders and used other mediums to increase promotions

Reconnect practitioners met with increasing demand over this time, again due to covid -19 restrictions. However, the flexibility shown by practitioners in adjusting their service delivery to meet demands, ensured that young people and their families were well supported. As a result, feedback from young people showed that;

  • 80.54% of young people engaged with the Reconnect program saw an improvement in their families functioning.
  • 81.4% of clients engaged with the Reconnect program saw an improvement in their housing situations.
  • 81.8% of clients engaged within the Reconnect program saw an increase in knowledge and skills.

While community development, promotion and group work are a core function of the Reconnect program the restrictions provided a new challenge in the way that service delivery was able to be delivered. Instead, practitioners leaned towards less conventional ways to engage with young people and stakeholders and used other mediums to increase promotions. This saw an increased range of services referring to Reconnect and included a mix of both existing and new relationships amongst service providers and enabled planning for future events.

Group work programs around keeping safe physically and online, as well as understanding healthy relationships and self-care strategies, were planned for delivery to targeted groups as restrictions ceased. Reconnect delivered one such group to young people who identified with the LGBTI community, this group had twenty participants and provided an ongoing safe space for those enrolled to explore concepts related to their own safety. Additionally, a group was delivered to prefects at a local High School with the aim of identifying safety, selfcare and healthy relationship information for each of them, but also to ensure that they understood who they could then refer other students to. Prefects are leaders within the school setting, and it was deemed important for them to have the information at hand should another student come to them in crisis. Planning and preparation has also been underway for Reconnect to deliver a group to young females from Afghanistan and Bhutan in conjunction with the Migrant Resource Centre North. These groups will have the assistance of an interpreter, and the planning for the groups has shown that the need is high within this community for young people to be aware of their own safety and where to go for assistance should they need it.