We have joined the fundraising efforts of the Property Industry Association (PIF) to fight youth homelessness with a 30 day fitness challenge which aims to raise $250,000 – will you support us?
Check out who of the Burdekin team has signed up for the PIF 30 Day Fitness Challenge, we would love it if you could support us! We have set a modest aim to raise $1,000, every single donation counts! And of course, we would like to overshoot the goal and contribute as much as possible to the overall goal.
About
PIF wish to raise $250,000 towards The Haven Project which includes the renovation of a house in Balgowlah into a new home for young people. You can read more about the project here: New Home in the Making and here: Haven House Balgowlah. We wanted to thank PIF so much for their efforts in getting this fundraiser off the ground for our project partners – SMLXL Projects, Bridge Housing and others, such an amazing community effort!
Burdekin are getting active in the name of team building, mental health, and physical health, but most importantly to Get Fit to For Homeless Youth.
#pif30daychallenge #getfitforhomelessyouth
Youth homelessness affects 44,000 young Australians, and each night, 1 in 3 young people are being turned away from supported accommodation services.
The Property Industry Foundation exists to solve this problem of youth homelessness. We bring together the property and construction industry to build homes for homeless youth through our Haven Project.
Every day for 30 days from 2 – 31 May, we are walking, running, cycling and everything in between to raise funds as we go – please support us!
Community Capital Foundation presents Connecting the Dots screenings and panel discussion events.
We have partnered with Community Capital Foundation and other local organisations for something very important to us – screenings of the documentary film Connecting the Dots by award-winning Canadian film director Noemi Weis, as well as post screening panel discussions.
Discussions will include mental health experts, local organisations and youth representatives to talk about how we can collectively improve youth mental health in 2022.
You can view screenings of Connecting the Dots on:
Connecting the Dots is the first feature documentary of its kind to offer a raw and inteimate look at youth mental health from a global youth perspective.
“The film gives a voice to our future leaders, who, through sharing their lived experience- articulate the problems and potential solutions. Community Capital Foundation will then work directly with Northern Sydney’s youth to identify ideas needing community support. In addition, we’re asking local individuals and businesses to contribute to our Youth Impact Fund for a giving program this year,” says the Foundation’s manager, Jessie Williams
Youth Mental Health Crisis
Late last year, self-harm and suicidal ideation were up 31 per cent for children and teenagers compared with 2020, according to NSW Government’s Health report.
With mental health charities doing it tough and rising rates of youth struggling, Community Capital Foundation want to shift the dial through a campaign to increase awareness, identify organisations making a difference and help raise the capital to contribute to our next grants program.
Community Capital Foundation is an initiative by local Northern Beaches organisation, Community Care Northern Beaches. We support our communities through grant-giving and community-building initiatives that positively impact our local backyard. Since 2019, we have donated $111,000 to programs eradicating Indigenous youth disadvantage, building male youth resilience and respect for themselves and others, and programs supporting victims of domestic violence, plus several others.
“When a flower doesn’t grow, you change the environment around it. As communities, we need to learn how to create safe and empowering spaces for young people to achieve their best mental health,” says Community Capital Foundation’s Youth Ambassador, Emily Unity.
During the pandemic we undertook a client survey to find out how the young people in our care are doing – what is going well and what is going not so well – in our continuous strive to better meet their needs.
Data for the client survey was collected over a period of 3 months via an online survey platform. The survey team comprised of volunteers Amy, Bec and Caitlin, headed by Burdekin employee and Volunteer Manager Jill.
The opportunity to participate in the survey was offered to all clients in Burdekin’s housing programs, Out of Home Care and Youth Housing, and in both the Inner West and Northern Beaches regions.
The survey was conducted primarily during the difficult period of Sydney’s lengthy COVID-19 lockdown. This presented the opportunity to undertake a “pulse check” on the state of service delivery during this challenging time on top of the purpose of the survey to gather vital client feedback to inform future decision-making and get a clear understanding of how well we are doing as a service provider.
We compiled a list of tips for managing physical and mental health for times when we may need to restrict our movements or self-isolate. Tips like staying connected, keeping a routine, moving and exercising body and mind – whatever it takes to get through it.
Check out our multiple support programs and seek help before crisis hits.
In an emergency call: 000. Lifeline – 13 11 14. Kids Help Line (5–25 years) – 1800 55 1800.
Stress
One of the main contributors to mental illness is stress. It’s a good idea to know what triggers stress, what it does to us and how we can help prevent it:
Trauma
Gabor Mate, Hungarian-Canadian physician and author defines trauma as follows:
Trauma is the invisible force that shapes our lives. It shapes the way we live, the way we love and the way we make sense of the world. It is the root of our deepest wounds.
Gabor Mate
Our Programs
At Burdekin we offer therapeutic, holistic, evidence-based, trauma-informed care to our young people. We offer physical and emotional safety – above all – to our young people and our staff. We support young people so they can trust us. Our staff are fully trained to recognise the signs and symptoms of trauma and offer care that is sensitive to our young people’s racial, ethnic, and cultural background, and gender identity.
Healing
Bessel van der Kolk, in his book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, explores “the extreme disconnection from the body that so many people with histories of trauma and neglect experience” and the most fertile paths to recovery by drawing on his own work and a wealth of other research in three main areas of study: neuroscience, which deals with how mental processes function within the brain; developmental psychopathology, concerned with how painful experiences impact the development of mind and brain; and interpersonal neurobiology, which examines how our own behaviour affects the psychoemotional and neurobiological states of those close to us…. read more.
World Mental Health Day falls on October 10th, not so coincidentally World Homelessness Day falls on the same day.
At the National Youth Homelessness Conference in 2021, Prof. Brian Burdekin AO says:
The Covid 19 pandemic followed closely on the heels of widespread bush fires and floods. The latest evidence is that these events have been extremely stressful – including for many young Australians – particularly our most disadvantaged young people.
Prof. Brian Burdekin AO
He also quotes a recent interview with Prof. Pat McGorry:
At least one million young Australians a year are affected by serious mental illness” we know that many thousands of those have schizophrenia – (expert evidence indicates approximately 10% of those young people will take their own lives if they don’t get adequate care.)
Prof Pat McGorry
Read more here. And in the National Homelessness Conference 2019:
In the Mental Illness Report we concluded there were very strong links between homelessness and its tendency to exacerbate difficulties suffered by mentally ill people –and between mental illness and its tendency to increase the risk of homelessness. Clearly there was an inter-relationship there which had to be addressed and in many ways which was not being addressed.
