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Who are my youths interacting with?
Everyone working in youthspace has bluecards and has checked references and community vetting. The President (daniel patterson) has almost completed a Cert 4 in Youth and Family Intervention & suicide intervention and mental first aid.
How long have you been operating?
We have 5+ years experience dealing with a variety of youth from 10-18+ in all different situations
How do you keep my kid safe?
We do this through a multi pronged approach
- Extensive vetting of new volunteers.
- Culture & training about speaking up about anything that seems off about anyone.
- Feedback and reporting, including anonymous and in many different forms.
How are you funded?
Although we have all the duties and responsibilities of a not for profit organization who interacts with children we have no day to day funding and all our staff are volunteers unless specified otherwise.
Are you affiliated with any church group?
We have no religious affiliations, we respect everyone’s culture and beliefs and how they wish to be addressed
How are the volunteers trained?
All volunteers are trained on our code of conduct, risk management strategies, culture and safety procedures as well as changes to legislation.
What do you do when kids are being bullied?
We have a serious anti-bulling policy which can result in taking a break from events, Ideally we will try to host a meeting with both parents in order to ensure that it won’t happen again
What do I do if I or my youth has concerns?
Youth are encouraged to report anything they hear/see/feel that makes them feel unsafe and can do so anonymously. Feedback can be anonymous and is sent to both myself and a parent who can take and manage the report seriously.
Additionally parents can contact me via our facebook page or viag
What if something happens during an event?
We encourage youths to have open dialogs with their parents/guardians and should something serious happen or something that you need to know we will let you know asap.
If a youth has breached the rules they will get a ban for a specified time depending on the seriousness of the breach. This is both for the safety of the youths as well as a consequence of their actions. If needed we can have a meeting with you to explain what happened and what is needed to move forward (eg apologies, take down of posts, behaviour changes etc)
What is our duty of care?
From the moment we pick up the youth to the moment they are dropped off they are in our duty of care. All the expected rules apply like no drugs/alcohol allowed anywhere at events.
We provide some food and drink, let us know if your youth has food allergies etc
We have a duty of confidentiality when it comes to the kids however we acknowledge that the healthiest relationship with your youth is one where you’re both honest and will encourage them to establish/continue that kind of relationship with you.
Do you have contact with youth outside of events?
We do provide youth outreach services but typically to youths who lack protective factors (parents, community etc) and have approached us. This service has an eligibility criteria and has a limited scope. Otherwise no as that’s against our policies
- Further information is available on our Services
- If you see something you think is off, report it here feedback
How is feedback handled?
Please visit our feedback process page for more information
I have a question that’s not on this page?
Please submit it as feedback so we can add it here