National Child and Youth Homelessness Conference

Together with our incredible and passionate sector partners, our lived experience advisors, and staff, we had the privilege of attending, supporting, and sharing their knowledge and expertise at the National Child and Youth Homelessness Conference held by Youth Development Australia.

It was heartwarming and humbling to advocate alongside Professor Brian Burdekin of The Burdekin Association, an incredible human rights champion for children and young people experiencing homelessness for over three decades!

We were deeply inspired and grateful to witness young people with lived experience share their stories and humanise the data, reminding us of the importance of acting now and collaboratively advocate with our sector partners.

It has become clear that we need a national strategy and plan to respond to child and youth homelessness. In doing so we need to remember that:

• To improve and redesign the system, changes need to be guided by the experiences and voices of children and young people.
• We need to reimagine social housing in the context of our children and young people and remember that wrap-around support services need to be available with housing.
• Early intervention services are vital, and we need to adopt an intersectional approach that acknowledges and responds to the uniqueness of every child and young person’s background and identity.
• It is imperative that a child and young person’s family violence and mental health strategy and plan is delivered alongside. We need to break down the silos and work together! 

It has been an incredible two days and we look forward to working collectively with our sector partners and advocating this urgent and important work.