Children and young people continue leading change in their own right
Y-Change
Berry Street’s Y-Change initiative is a social and systemic change platform for young people with lived experiences of socioeconomic and systemic disadvantage. Y-Change Lived Experience Consultants advocate for meaningful and sustained change for (and with) children and young people across Victoria and beyond.
This year, their work predominantly focused on family violence and mental health service system reforms, ensuring the voices and views of historically marginalised and unrepresented children and young people were central to system change efforts.
As we continue to grapple with the intensity and fallout of the last few years, the Y-Change team continue to educate our sector about what it means to lead by example. The Lived Experience Consultants’ humility, integrity, and fierce advocacy elevates the standards of authentic and meaningful co-production, youth engagement, and client voice. We remain staunch in our vision of challenging societal and institutional perceptions of and responses to children and young people experiencing ongoing systemic neglect and pushing the sector beyond ‘giving voice’ and towards shared decision-making power.
Amplifying the voice of children victim survivors
In February, Y-Change and Take Two’s Northern Healing and Recovery Program (NHARP) received funding from Family Safety Victoria to host a series of listening sessions to capture what is important to children and young people when experiencing family violence and create an illustrated resource that could be used by sector practitioners.
Conversations covered the importance of listening to children and young people, changes they wanted to see in the system, the impact of family violence on their mental health, and what makes them feel safe and unsafe.
As Kirra, Y-Change Lived Experience Consultant and Youth Focused Peer Support Worker at the NHARP reflects, “Children and young people are rarely part of conversations about their experiences of family violence and hard times. We have important stories to share and by not hearing them, people are missing a massive part of the family violence narrative.”
In April, Kirra presented the insights gained, as well as her own lived experience, at Family Safety Victoria’s Inaugural Lived Experience Forum, ‘More than our story: action, wisdom and change’.
National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032
Y-Change and Melbourne City Mission welcomed the opportunity to give feedback on the draft National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032. While commending the government on this focus, their feedback pointed out that young people had been overlooked by the plan. Their joint response highlights the importance of recognising children and young people not just as extensions of their caregivers, or ‘secondary victims,’ but as victim survivors in their own right.
Lived experience focus for the Quarterly Essay
In mid-2021 Dr Sarah Krasnostein, author of the Trauma Cleaner, met with a Y-Change Lived Experience Consultant to gain insight into mental health and how it is managed within our community, for her Quarterly Essay, Not Waving, Drowning – Mental Illness and Vulnerability in Australia.
Consultant Eliza* shared her story with Sarah, revealing how she survived significant childhood trauma, the challenges of living with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and suicidal thoughts while navigating the complexities of the mental health service system as a young person.
Berry Street is proud of Eliza and her advocacy work, and for sharing her story in such a way that illustrates what needs to urgently be done to fix our mental health system.
Sector-first resource for practitioners supporting young victim survivors
Y-Change and the peak body for specialist family violence services, Safe and Equal, co-produced a resource guide to help practitioners better support children and young people experiencing family violence. The guide covers topics such as ‘Creating a safe and inclusive space’ and ‘See us as victim survivors in our own right’. Practitioners can use this guide by reading, reflecting on, and coming back to tips and practical activity ideas while working alongside children and young people.
Our new Annual Report is here: Reimagining Futures, Creating Impact
Berry Street is pleased to release its Annual Report 2021-22. This year’s report is a powerful testament to the critical difference that our work can make.
We invite you to download our 2021-22 Annual Report to read about how:
- our evidence-based services are delivering a deep impact (from page 12);
- we are continuing to reflect on and celebrate our reconciliation journey (page 16);
- the Berry Street Education Model (BSEM) positively impacted Malak Primary School (page 18).
Translating the family violence reform: Y-Change partners with Family Violence Reform Implementation Monitor to create a child and youth summary
