ANNUAL REPORT 2022/23
We believe children, young people and families should be safe, thriving and hopeful.
Read on to find out about the work we’ve done this year to reimagine service systems and courageously change lives.
Snapshot
|
Programs |
Total service users |
|---|---|
|
Case Management |
244 |
|
Community Programs |
3,445 |
|
Education Services |
2,046 |
|
Family Violence Support Services |
2,540 |
|
Orange Door Support and Safety Hubs |
14,330 |
|
Out-of-home care |
1,354 |
|
Parenting and Family Services |
1,685 |
|
Post Care Support |
371 |
|
Young People |
763 |
|
Take Two |
1,737 |
|
28,515 |
Goal 1
Reimagine the Future
Goal 2
Make an Impact
Goal 3
Support Our People
Goal 4
Growth and Sustainability
Goal 1
—
Reimagine the Future
We will advocate to drive systems reform so that services work effectively for those who most need them.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
- Continuing to expand the Berry Street Education Model right across Australia so that more children and young people receive the trauma-informed education they need to thrive in their learning.
- Berry Street, along with sector partners, has long called for increased investment in residential care. This year we saw that advocacy come to fruition as the government committed to increasing the funding for therapeutic supports in residential care homes, which will help ensure more children who experience trauma are given the care they need and deserve.
Goal 2
—
Make an Impact
We will be informed by evidence and the voices of the people we work with to positively impact lives.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
- Continuing to expand and embed our evidence- based programs, including:
- Teaching Family Model (TFM)
- Multisystemic Therapy (MST)
- SafeCare®
- Safe & Together Model
- Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP)
- Employing Lived Experience Consultants into key roles across the organisation, with Y- Change - Berry Street's social and systemic change platform for young people with lived expertise of socioeconomic disadvantage – acting as a bridge. Y-Change's succession structures have enabled several consultants to progress their careers and be employed across Berry Street’s services – as well as in key sector organisations – so that our service users, staff and partners directly benefit from their knowledge, experience and unique
- Launching a new 3-year strategy to reimagine home-based care. The strategy includes innovative recruitment processes that harness diversity, inclusiveness and flexibility so that potential foster carers have a positive recruitment experience, as well as measures to ensure vulnerable children and young people have safe and caring homes.
Goal 3
—
Support Our People
We will support, value and enable our staff so that together we courageously change lives.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
- WorkSafe recognised the work we have done to support injured workers to get back to work by awarding Berry Street the Leading Return to Work Practice award for 2022.
- Launching Coaching Conversations’ in-house coaching course for directors and senior managers to develop their capability to enhance performance, connection, creativity, accountability and trust. Team leaders will also undertake the program.
- Holding our annual staff celebration, which included recognition of individuals and teams through staff awards.
Goal 4
—
Growth and Sustainability
We will grow sustainably and expand our services in response to community needs.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
- Completing a significant IT infrastructure project to strengthen our security and respond to increased online risk.
- Launching the new Berry Street Virtual Gift Catalogue so that all children and young people in our care receive a Christmas gift.
- Implementing a new client management system to streamline and improve our client information management practices.
Healing Trauma
With the right help and support, children can recover from trauma and lead healthy, happy lives. The evidence-based, world leading services provided by our Take Two program engage all the people and systems around a child to support their recovery. We also train others in delivering trauma informed approaches.
Callum gets the trauma-informed support
he needs to recover
Callum* was 5 years old when he was referred to Take Two, and he and his mum began to be supported through Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP).
Callum had experienced trauma and neglect in his life, including being exposed to his parents’ mental health issues and substance addiction. This had led to challenges for Callum around emotional avoidance and regulation, anxiety, and social isolation. He was experiencing depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares and hypervigilance.
There were also concerns around the impact of disrupted attachment and these difficult early life experiences on Callum’s development in general.
After 8 months of intervention through CPP, Callum was experiencing significantly less anxiety, depression and symptoms of post-traumatic stress, with any symptoms he was showing moving from having a significant impact on his daily life to no significant difference at all when compared with his peers. Importantly, Callum’s mum’s ability to understand her son’s developmental needs and attune to his emotional needs had also improved, bringing hope that this early intervention will help set Callum and his family on a different path for the future.
Addressing Family Violence
We want to make sure that every person experiencing family violence can easily access support and safety. Through our free specialist family violence services, we help children and their caregivers make sense of the trauma they have experienced, so they can recover and feel safe again.
Rachel & Elle* thrive through the support of the Village
Rachel* and her two-year-old daughter Elle* were referred to the Mother Infant Village in Ballarat by Berry Street’s specialist family violence team. They had experienced family violence, including coercive control by Elle’s father.
When they first came to the Village, Rachel described feelings of frustration, guilt, and shame, as well as isolation in the wake of COVID lockdowns. She was also worried about Elle’s early socialisation and ability to transition to kindergarten. Also, although Rachel and Elle’s bond was strong, the violence they had experienced was having an impact. Elle’s father was still able to see Elle, and she would become distressed and even aggressive towards her mum in the lead up to and following contact with her dad.
At the Village, Rachel was able to access a range of specialised therapeutic supports—as well as a network of other mums and infants with similar experiences.
She joined a supported playgroup with Elle, took part in several mother and infant group work sessions, and completed both the Circle of Security Parenting and Mums & Bubs Group programs.
Elle is now four and enrolled at a local kindergarten, where she is thriving, and Rachel is more confident in the security of their relationship and her abilities as a parent. She is also now employed and in a new, supportive relationship free from violence.
Rachel has shared how beneficial it was to have a network and specialised supports at that difficult time, and that she is now interested in pursuing a career in community services to support other women, children, and families.
Providing Safe Homes
Sometimes it isn’t safe for children to stay with their families. We provide homes for children, including foster, kinship and residential care. For children and young people who have experienced significant, repeated trauma, we have the Teaching Family Model (TFM).
TFM is the only evidence-based model of residential care worldwide, helping children and young people recover from trauma in a family-style setting. We’re the first accredited agency in Australia to implement TFM, and we are supporting other organisations to do the same.
"My life is really good. This is a place I know I can be safe. I’m really happy."
TFM, Young Person
TFM team supports Joel with independent living goals
Joel* was 15 years old when his parents felt they could no longer care for him. He was placed in a foster home where he started self-harming and, after a few months, his foster carer felt they too could no longer keep Joel safe. He was referred to a Teaching Family Model home.
When Joel first entered the TFM home, he continued self-harming and was admitted to hospital several times. He wasn’t going to school and was filling his days seeing friends.
TFM practitioners immediately put in place a structured routine for Joel, which included time for friends, schoolwork, and meeting with his school, mental health and other supports. Importantly, Joel had a say in his routine and demonstrated great skills negotiating with carers and accepting boundaries. He also mastered skills such as ‘asking for help’ and ‘following instructions’, while working through complex problems around healthy relationships and healthy coping strategies.
Joel began to flourish—he had a new part-time job, his self-harming stopped, and he was spending more time with friends who were good role models. However, it was not all smooth sailing, as he continued to process the shame and loss he was experiencing being away from his family home. On top of this, Joel’s parents had unfortunately decided he would not be able to return.
The TFM team provided wraparound support to Joel through this difficult time, helping him manage any unhealthy coping mechanisms that crept back in. Soon, with a focus on routine, consistency and self determination, Joel bounced back and set a new goal to move to independent living. He has also always wanted to finish Year 12 and is continuing towards this.
With the support of the TFM team, Joel is on track to achieve his goal and will move into semi-independent living later this year. He’ll continue to be supported by a leaving care program until he is 21, to ensure he has support in navigating this new stage of life.
Trauma-informed Education
The current education system is not always well-placed to meet the needs of children who have experienced trauma. Our education programs, including the Berry Street School, help children achieve their full potential, particularly those with complex, unmet learning needs.
The school uses the Berry Street Education Model, which provides strategies that enable educators and allied staff to increase the engagement of students with complex, unmet learning needs and successfully improve all students’ self regulation, relationships, wellbeing, growth and academic achievement.
"For the first time I feel supported at school. I can complete my work knowing that my teachers want me to succeed and I can be myself."
Bella
Year 12 student, Berry Street School
Kira achieves graduation goals
Kira* joined the Morwell Campus of the Berry Street School in Year 9 after disengaging from a mainstream school that was not able to meet her needs. Kira had experienced serious sexual assault at home, and, as is often the case when a student has experienced this level of trauma, she was having difficulty learning in the absence of the specialist support she needed. At the Berry Street School, Kira received that support and was able to reengage with learning. She explored the idea of a career as a musician in her music classes and was supported by her teachers to apply for work experience in the industry.
Later, when in her final year, Kira planned a project that involved inviting the local café she’d been working at to visit the school for a day. The project was a success, with Kira arranging a mobile version of the café to visit so that everyone could enjoy hot drinks and baked treats. Many reflected that the day had been a highlight of the year.
By this time, she’d decided to work in the Early Childhood Education and Care sector rather than music, and was working hard to complete units of competency and a work placement at a local childcare centre.
At the end of the year, Kira graduated from the Berry Street School with two certificates — an Intermediate Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning and a Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care – bringing her another step closer to achieving her goals
Reconciliation
- Our first Aboriginal and Strait Islander Committee
- Honoured truth-telling through our submission to the Yoorrook Justice Commission
- Offered staff the option to work and not celebrate Invasion Day, in recognition of this painful day
Y-Change
- Missing Figures: The Role of Domestic and Family Violence in Youth Suicide report
- Co-designing the Hearing from Young People COVID-19 survey
- Lived Experience Consultants progressing their careers across Berry Street’s serviceservices.
Diversity & Inclusion
- Launched our first Belonging Statement
- Created new Access & Inclusion Plan
- Begun journey towards Rainbow Tick accreditation for the whole of Berry Street
Philanthropy Stories
Veith Foundation's innovative philanthropy turns opportunities into achievements
Explore how the Veith Foundation drives positive change by supporting Berry Street, aiming to instil confidence in young lives and create opportunities through innovative philanthropy and a family-oriented approach.
Next generation philanthropy: The Goodman Foundation steps up to give back
We spoke with Harry Heyworth, Director of the Goodman Family Foundation to discover their legacy-driven philanthropy. Through a systematic, data-driven approach, they continue to support Berry Street's impactful programs, contributing to transformative change in Australia.
Thank you
We couldn’t do what we do without our generous philanthropic partners, corporate sponsors, community fundraisers, individual donors, and research and educational partners. Thank you for continuing to support our work to courageously change lives so that children, young people and families can be safe, thriving and hopeful.
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