LiveWires
For more than 40 years, Concern Australia has provided support and advocacy for some of the most disadvantaged and marginalised individuals and groups within the community. Concern Australia’s programs and services assist young people by addressing issues that create barriers to participation in mainstream education, training, employment and personal development. These include issues around lack of safe and supportive housing access, drug and alcohol addictions, offending behaviours, mental health and the impact of trauma/attachment issues.
Concern Australia’s LiveWires Programs provide tailored responses for Primary School aged children who live in and around the Collingwood Public Housing Estate recognising that they require a considered mix of support strategies, applied in a coordinated way within a broader community context.
How LiveWires helps urban poverty?
The LiveWires Programs have been running on the Collingwood Pubic Housing Estate for over 6 years. They began providing the only after school hours care programs for Primary School Aged children on the Estate. They now work in conjunction with many agencies such as North Yarra Community Health, local schools, The Jesuit Social Services, Department of Housing, The Department of Education, Victorian Police, not to mention others, to help provide a cohesive support system for these vulnerable children and their families. Many of these children are left unsupervised afterschool when there are no programs. This leads some of them to committing petty crime. History would indicate that these offences have the potential to become more and more serious the older the children get if there are no activities provided for them. Breaking the cycle for many of these children while they are young, may allow them to live beyond the boundaries of the housing estates, to aspire to gain employment in professions they want to, to have the confidence to succeed and the resilience to build healthy relationships.
Success Story
The LiveWires Programs have supported over 350 children since its conception in 2005. 8 programs have been birthed out of the After Hours Care Program to assist these children in building confidence in themselves and their capabilities.
A young woman said hello to me the other day on the street. I didn’t recognize her for a moment and then realised it was someone who used to come to LiveWires AHC Program. I stopped and chatted with her for a while to see how she was going. She has moved out of the area and just come back for a visit. Life has been very hard for this young person, and continues to be so. Both of her parents suffer from mental illness and drug use related issues. We started talking about the ‘old days’ at LiveWires AHC and she sighed and said how much she missed LiveWires AHC Program in her life. She left the program 5 years ago. It was a reminder to me of how significant our programs are in the lives of many children. While to some it may seem we just ‘hang out with kids’, we work very hard to provide a safe spaces for them to play and create in as well as learn sporting skills and develop their numeracy and literacy. The positive impact of these spaces is evident by the testimony of this young person. LiveWires AHC Program has been one of the few places in her life where she has felt safe and seen.
