YPS is 100% committed to providing services to children & young people that are realistic, appropriate and responsive to their needs and goals.
Our approach
Our range of services have been designed to ensure children & young people are at the centre of all support provided and all actions put into place. Young people are the experts in their lives and at YPS this is what we focus on.
Some of the key frameworks YPS works from include:
- Young person centred services
- Trauma informed care
- Strengths-based support
- Culturally Safe & Competent practice
YPS is a Child Safe and Best Practice organisation – this means that everything we do, every program we develop and every aspect of the support we provide is done with the safety, health and wellbeing of children & young people at the centre of our processes. Keeping children & young people safe from harm & helping them achieve their goals is our main objective.
Other key parts of our approach to working with children & young people are around helping young people build their own individual skills, particularly around building independence. The young people we support have a huge range of skills, strengths and talents & at YPS we work with young people to highlight these strengths & build on them in the areas that are important to young people. Our service is not designed to set young people up to fail or build dependence on us- we support young people to build their skills, their self-advocacy & their ability to be responsible for their actions & lives.
YPS as an agency is committed to making sure that everything we do, across all parts of our agency, is based on our beliefs and dedication to culturally safe and trauma informed practice. Our young people have faced diverse and extensive challenges in their young lives and its essential that the services we provide are informed by & respectful of each individual young person’s story of survival.
Safe Spaces
We recognise that it can be scary for children/young people to access services & share their story so we’ve worked with children/young people, other agencies & community members to make sure all our office, residential sites and drop-in space are safe and youth friendly spaces. This has included YPS staff and young people working together with a Biripi & Dunghutti Elder (who is also a Gatang & Dunghutti language teacher) to develop a Welcome Message to all our Aboriginal children/young people (who are either ‘on’ or ‘off’ country) accessing YPS services Port Macquarie.
Our Gatang (Biripi Nation) message is simple & hopefully helps our Aboriginal children/young people know that they are safe at YPS.
Mara Bingay, Mara Djiyagan, Ngurra Marrung Dhanbaan Yii
(Come Brother, Come Sister, this is a good strong camp).
YPS is also a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Androgynous and questioning (LGBTQIA+) young people safe space. This means that all services, programs and staff at YPS are LGBTQIA+ friendly and safe & we welcome children/young people from this community in our agency.
Safe & well trained staff
As a child and young person agency YPS is accountable to the safety of children & young people at all times. All staff employed by YPS in a child-related role must undergo the Working with Children’s Check before they are employed. All staff are regularly monitored to ensure they are compliant with their obligations under the Working with Children Regulations and YPS’s Code of Ethics and Practice.
All staff regardless of their role in our service participate in Cultural Competency and Trauma-Informed Practice training, which is renewed yearly. YPS thinks it is essential that every part of our service comes from the same place of respect for children & young people & their individual life story.
