Cassie is the Accommodation Services Coordinator at Youth, Family and Community Connections, including Malana Youth at Risk Centre (YARC), a specialist homelessness service based in Launceston.

Malana has been open since November 2022 and provides temporary accommodation and care tailored to the needs of unaccompanied children and young people aged between 12 and 15 years.

“We work with young people who are referred to us from a variety of services, or their families,” Cassie said.

“The reunification of the young person and their family is our primary goal. We work with young people and their families to achieve this. Sometimes they just need a circuit breaker, and we can help families identify what extra supports might be needed to help keep them together.

“When young people come in, we talk about their situation and how they have come to be here, and we work with them to identify goals they would like to achieve.

“Malana is like a house, so there are house rules and we have a chore roster. Everyone is assigned a chore to complete for the house every day, this could be cooking, vacuuming or cleaning certain shared spaces. We help the young people to develop living skills, and for some of the young people, their goals often relate to things such as learning to use a washing machine.”

Malana supports young people to build interpersonal skills, pursue education or training, get involved in community activities and transition to an alternative, safe and stable place to live if returning to their family is not an option.

“We advocate a lot for the young people in our care. It’s about meeting their needs and letting them make decisions instead of us telling them what we think they need. We will make suggestions, but ultimately, it’s up to the young person to make decisions for themselves on what they need,” Cassie said.

“We have services that come on site, and it can be easier for the young people to engage with the services where they feel comfortable and secure. It also means that if they want us to attend appointments with them, we are close by and can provide that support for them.

“At the end of the day, it’s their journey, and we are in their lives for a really short period of time.”

Homes Tasmania invests over $50 million annually to support Specialist Homelessness Services and 20 homeless shelters across the state. Ten of these shelters are dedicated to unaccompanied young people, including two shelters for children and young people aged 16 years or under.

Read more about Malana and the services offered by YFCC by visiting Youth, Family & Community Connections (YFCC) | Towards a Better Future