Homelessness among young people in Australia: Early intervention and prevention: A report to the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme, by Phil Crane, Jillian Brannock (project directors), Linda Ray (project coordinator), Jenny Campbell, Georgia Smeal and Bill Atweh (Research team members) with the special assistance of Megan Williams and Shane Warren (research assistants) Nikki McLarty, Cherie Sloan, Mark Hoyle, Jenny Clough and Samorn Sanixay (peer researchers).

Hobart: National Clearinghouse for Youth Studies
© 1996
ISBN 1 875236 35 X

Price and availability:

Out of print, but available for download free of charge in PDF format

1. Download the entire document in PDF format (1 MB); or
2. Download individual chapters and sections(see below).

NOTE about PDF files : In order to read PDF documents, you need to install on your own computer the free Acrobat PDF reader software, available for downloading from the Adobe web site. Tools to help make Adobe PDF files accessible to the vision impaired are available from http://access.adobe.com/.  Also see the Adobe support pages for tips on downloading and printing PDF files.

Contents page

Authors:

Phil Crane, Jillian Brannock (project directors), Linda Ray (project coordinator), Jenny Campbell, Georgia Smeal and Bill Atweh (Research team members) with the special assistance of Megan Williams and Shane Warren (research assistants) Nikki McLarty, Cherie Sloan, Mark Hoyle, Jenny Clough and Samorn Sanixay (peer researchers).

Acknowledgments:

This report was commissioned and funded by the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme (NYARS), which operates through voluntary funding and participation of the Commonwealth, States and Territories. We grate-fully acknowledge the ongoing assistance of NYARS, and in particular Peter Jones, the Chair, and the NYARS Steering Committee's liaison officers for the project, Magdi El Hag and Judith Rowell (Youth Bureau, Queensland Department of Family, Youth and Community Care). Additional funding from The Body Shop allowed for payment of the young people participating in the research and is gratefully acknowledged. It is important to acknowledge and thank those young people and parents who participated in the interviews. The telling of personal stories about family, home leaving and homelessness, though freely given, was sometimes painful and deeply personal. The authors express their thanks to those non-government and government service providers who assisted with locat-ing young people and parents to interview, participated in advisory processes and focus groups, provided reports and documentation, or otherwise gave of their time. In particular, we wish to thank the services involved in the case studies and national survey for giving their time and for their insights regarding their programs and their vision. We wish to acknowledge the support and assistance of the Centre for Research in Policy and Leadership Studies, Queensland University of Technology, where the project was based and the School of Social Science, Queensland University of Technology, for providing study leave necessary for the research to be undertaken. Thanks are also due to Fr. Wally Dethlefs and Dr Rodney Fopp, for their valuable input, Martin Lambert, School of Maths, Science and Technology, QUT, for his assistance in survey analysis, Jocylen Lee, for her secretarial support, and Anna Spencer, Grant Brannock and Stephen Villiers for their input and support throughout the project.

 

Download as individual documents:

Acknowledgments
(plain text, at end of this page)

List of tables
(plain text, at end of this page)

Executive summary
as a PDF document or as plain text

Chapter 1: Introduction
as a PDF document or as plain text

Chapter 2: (PDF format) Homelessness and early home leaving: Prevention and early intervention

Chapter 3: (PDF format) How the research was conducted

Chapter 4: (PDF format) Description and review of policies and programs

Chapter 5: (PDF format) Perspectives of young people

Chapter 6: (PDF format) Perspectives of parents

Chapter 7: (PDF format) Perspectives of service providers: National survey

Chapter 8: (PDF format) Case studies of services

Chapter 9: (PDF format) Implications for best practice and policymaking

References (PDF format)

Appendices (PDF format)

List of tables:

No.

Heading

Page no

2.1

Definitions of prevention and early intervention

15

2.2

Family status of persons aged 15 to 24, June 1995

18

2.3

Percentage of 15- to 24-year-olds living with parent(s)

18

2.4

Homelessness related calls according to severity - Kids Help Line

20

2.5

Age of SAAP youth service users, census night 1994

20

4.1

Orientation of prevention and early intervention programs

32

5.1

Interviewees' age distribution

39

5.2

Interviewees' educational/work status

39

5.3

Age of first home leaving

40

5.4

Family structure at time of first home leaving

40

5.5

Stated reason(s) for first home leaving

40

5.6

Helpful or unhelpful in the period immediately prior to or after home leaving

48

5.7

Number of young people reporting responses from different sources as being either helpful or unhelpful

48

6.1

Employment status of parents

53

6.2

Family structure at time of first home leaving

54

6.3

Parents' perceptions of reasons for children's home leaving

54

6.4

Number of parents reporting particular types of response

60

6.5

Sources of responses given at different times in the process of home leaving

61

6.6

Number of parents reporting particular types of response as helpful or unhelpful

61

6.7

Number of parents reporting responses from different sources as being helpful or unhelpful

61

6.8

Number of parents indicating particular types of intervention as needed in their case or needed in general

63

7.1

Number of respondents categorised by funding source

70

7.2

Number of referral to services by source

70

7.3

Average percentage of those 18 and under who access the service providers

71

7.4

Most critical current intervention strategies

76

7.5

"Best practices" identified by service providers in models of early intervention

77

8.1

Service providers where case studies were undertaken

82