Upper Ross Youth Hub

Kasey Cassady

Upper Ross Youth Hub continues to deliver services to the Upper Ross region for young persons aged from 10 to 17 years old. We are an after hours service and operate from 5pm to 11pm Monday to Friday. Transport is available and we provide cooked meals every night.

The Upper Ross Youth Hub have been through a number of changes over the past 12 months through assessing the needs of youth in the local area. In consultation with TAIHS Lighthouse our program now looks a little different than our Youth Drop-in, and throughout this process, we have diminished a number of risks to our service. We now do pick ups and drop offs and offer a number of activities to address the needs of youth in the areas. Some of our activities are listed below:

• Yarning Up – Youth participants sit in a circle, go around and talk about their day. Youth introduce themselves and saying who their mob is – This activity builds self confidence and strength in self identity.

• Collaboration – With TAIHS Lighthouse doing a “GET ACTIVE” program and most recently at the Aikenvale library studio, where young people have fun in a studio environment working with green screens and recording

• Bala Boyz – Friday nights are for males only. Male youth workers provide mentoring and encourage boys to engage in a variety of activities whilst also talking to boys on a range of different topics

• Sistagurlz – Thursday nights are for girls only. Female youth workers provide mentoring and encourage girls to engage in a variety of activities whilst talking to girls about hygiene, healthy relationships and overall health and wellbeing. Also have pamper nights, arts and craft activities, vision boards and more

• Drop in Nights – Wednesday are drop in nights. We invite all youth to come in and have a feed, as well as access to computers, basketball game, movie night and games night

Highlights

The year of 2022 started off slowly with COVID restrictions in place in and around Queensland. During this period the Upper Ross Youth Hub continued to operate in a different way, instead we delivered a mobile service to ensure that our youth workers were still seen and we continued to engage with youth. A mobile service from local parks in the Upper Ross such as APEX Park and Charles Moroney Park providing fruit, meals and water which were prepared at the centre, we also conducted street checks to ensure that youth were able to get home safely and informed them of restrictions and encouraged them to stay home if they weren’t feeling well.

284 284 37

Total Contacts Distinct Contacts Distinct Persons

Data from 12/1/2022 to 23/2/2022.

During 2022 the Upper Ross Youth Hub supported 14 boys to register and play with Upper Ross Rams Rugby League team. Youth workers AJ Willis and Thomas Schwartz were also part of the coaching team and provided assistance with pick ups and drop offs to training and games.

Throughout the football season, the boys learnt to work as a team and the importance of consistency. They were also able to identify each other’s strengths and weaknesses and encouraged each other despite any losses.

AJ and Thomas have done amazing work with the boys along with mentoring them along the way and encouraging them to make healthy choices in life.

Upper Ross Rams Footy Club

288 288 19

Total Contacts Distinct Contacts Distinct Persons 288 288 19

Total Contacts Distinct Contacts Distinct Persons

Kasey Cassady – Youth Hub Coordinator

“My vision for the Upper Ross Youth Hub is to provide our own space where the youth can come in and relax in a space where they can display their artwork and positive messages. I also hope to gain more funding to provide mentoring roles and more training for our Youth workers who work endlessly to keep our youth safe.”

Partnerships and collaborations

A big thank you to TAIHS Lighthouse for their continued support and collaboration with the Upper Ross Youth Hub, we continue to do the “GET ACTIVE” program once a month.

Thank you to Deadly Choices for tickets the Cowboys Game at the new Queensland Country Bank Stadium, the youth had an awesome night cheering for the North Queensland Cowboys.

We continue to work with Youth Justice CoResponse team who work tirelessly to get our youth home safely.

Feedback

When asked why youth enjoy coming to Upper Ross Youth Hub, responses include:

Both Neither

3,540 88 Total Contacts Distinct Individuals 54 27 7 Age 9–12 Age 13–15 Age 16–17 46 42 Male Female 49 7 26 6 Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander

Data from 21/3/2022 to 17/8/2022