Philanthropy

Berry Street’s purpose is to courageously change lives and reimagine service systems.

Our generous philanthropic partners are key to achieving this purpose. These partnerships allow us to respond to community needs in innovative ways, particularly as we reorient the child and family services system towards early intervention and prevention.

We are very grateful to our philanthropic partners who support Berry Street’s work and allow us to better meet the needs of children, young people and families.

Philanthropic partnerships have helped the development and expansion of various Berry Street programs. These include:

• Y-Change
• Berry Street Education Model
• Berry Street School and Pathways Program
• Teaching Family Model
• Going Out and Living Successfully (GOALS)
• MI Village

The Pathways program supports students who are finishing their education at the Berry Street School to pursue further study and employment opportunities. For Michael Barr, Chairman of the Barr Family Foundation, the Pathways program struck a chord. With two of his children completing apprenticeships, Michael recognised some of the problems young people at our school could face.

During and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to provide care to children, young people and families. Protection of at-risk and traumatised children is classed as an essential service. Already vulnerable, these children, young people and families have additional stresses from external factors and are at increased risk due to isolation. Many of our workers are on the front line of care.

We continue to seek independent income from individuals and philanthropic bodies who are confident in Berry Street and want to partner with us to achieve change on a large scale.

Such funding enables us to:

• pilot innovative approaches to service delivery
• undertake research and evaluation
• implement our advocacy agenda.

If you would like to know more about Berry Street’s response to the current crisis, or the immediate and emerging pressures on our services, please get in touch. Contact our Philanthropy Manager, Catherine Shields, on 03 9421 7564 or at cshields@berrystreet.org.au.

Partners

Thank you to our generous philanthropic partners over the 2019-20 financial year: