As a crucial step was taken to address homelessness with the formation of the Southeast Homelessness and Housing Alliance, conversations around underlying causes were rife, especially among the youth.
Kelly Bendon, assistant principal at Lyndhurst Secondary College, spoke at length about how mental health and properly addressing the needs of a growing person are integral steps that need to be taken to prevent the possibility of homelessness.
As the senior school’s improvement and successful pathways leader, she spoke on the importance of well-being, mental health and communication, with behaviour playing a key role.
“We will see students that are acting out, through either physical fighting, swearing, or it could be through avoiding school,” she said.
“And through that, we’re often having conversations with our students to unpack what’s actually going on for them, and trying to find out what the root cause is.
“At times, we’re seeing a lot of students sleeping rough; we saw a lot in the past where students are couch surfing, going between friends’ homes.”
Bendan said that it’s not uncommon for her and her peers to see students as young as those in Year 7 “sleeping in parks”.
In turn, it highlights for them the work that is needed at a much earlier stage when it comes to tackling homelessness as a whole.
While the school itself is equipped to handle mental health work, their initial initiative of turning to child protection could prove to be more “apprehensive” for them than helpful.
“There are a lot of young people who haven’t had any experience with child protection, many with experiences of domestic violence,” Bendan said.
“So for them, they’re very apprehensive actually to connect and engage with these people.
“For us, it also means that there is a lot of work to do; we’ve sat in the school at time up to 7pm at night where we’re giving dinner to these kids because they won’t disclose what’s wrong or what’s going on, and at the end of the day they don’t have a safe place.”
Bendon added that one of the riskier times of the year is towards the end of terms, recounting that it is a time when students go into a long period without the safety and security of school.
“For many of our students, school is that safe place,” she said.
“We have kids that will rock up at 7:30am and stay after school until it’s really late just because they don’t have a safe place to go after that.”
Backpacks 4 VIC Kids, Victoria Police, as well as other services and organisations, are often partnered with the college, in what Bendon sees as “schools becoming one-stop shops for everything”.
“We have social workers at the school, we have a number of mental health clinicians, so we’re trying to provide that holistic service to young people.
“This is where schools are no longer just about teaching literacy and numeracy; we’re providing everything we can, but we can’t do it alone,” she said.
Stressing the importance of collaboration, Bendon said that having an overarching organisation, such as the Alliance, provides not only multiple avenues of assistance but also the logistical prowess to aid and cater for those in need.
“We’re all really eager to connect with our community services so that we can intervene early for these young people,” Bendon said.
