One of the most successful youth programs in Queensland has just been effectively dismantled by the Queensland Government. Over its 16 year life, the Youth Support Coordinator Initiative (YSCI) has achieve remarkable outcomes. The program has been critical in supporting young people to stay engaged in school and to make the transition to further education and employment.
Based in schools across Queensland, in 2010 alone, the 105 Youth Support Coordinators undertook 5 524 instances of direct support to individual young people, facilitated 793 groups involving a further 16 405 young people, and directly coordinated 554 community projects. Throughout all of this, the YSCI had one of the consistently highest satisfaction ratings of any youth program.
The recent budget announcement has seen around $8.6 million dollars lost from its previous total of $16 million, instantly halving the instances of direct support that this program can deliver. And despite evaluations showing its success and young people's satisfaction with the program, the Minister for Education has reallocated these funds to use at their own discretion, with no guarantee that the funds will assist young people disengaged from learning.
Director of the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland, Siyavash Doostkhah, has expressed his deep disappointment in the cuts.
“From a Government that promised no loss to frontline services, this is a big blow indeed,” said Mr Doostkhah.
“This decision fails to recognise the unique capacity for community-based services to support young people who are at risk of dropping out of education and training systems and ignores the long term social and economic consequences of allowing these young people to disengage from learning.”
The State Government has attempted to bury this loss of frontline services by extending YSCI contracts until December 2013.
“Despite the recent announcement of continued funding until the end of the year, this loss, on top of last year's decision to cut the highly successful Get Set for Work program and moves to make youth justice more punitive, underlines that this Government does not give one hoot about young people's lives.”
“What the Government are effectively doing is setting a ticking bomb in the present generation – the consequences of which we can't even being to imagine,” said Mr Doostkhah.
The Youth Affairs Network Qld is the peak body of the youth sector in Queensland, and is the only unfunded state peak body in Australia. The Newman Government defunded YANQ's work supporting the youth sector in December 2012.