Rotary Club of Ballarat

Berry St - It's work in Ballarat Gallery

Chairperson for the day Voi Williams introduced Andrew

Andrew commenced his working life as a secondary school teacher with the Victorian Education Department, demonstrating an early commitment to assisting disadvantaged children to reach their potential.

He has over 25 years' experience designing and delivering training and education programs in Government and community settings and has extensive experience in home-based care and youth support programs.

Andrew has worked for Berry Street since August 2012 and manages several programs he explained that children, young people, and families should be safe, thriving, and relationships is the key to healing

Berry Street has provided services to children, young people, and families for over 144 years, and today it is one of Australia's largest independent family service organisations providing a diverse range of programs to around 35,000 people in Victoria each year

The area Andrew and his team, work is from Ararat through to Bacchus Marsh.

There has been a spike of family violence in this region with high rates of child abuse and neglect.

School disengagement and significant levels of loss with this generation as they are engaged with the police.

Family violence , drug use contribute to school disengagement.

 

A program suite to assist in this area contains multiple programs:

·   family violence support services to assist with  child abuse, neglect, sexual abuse  

              bullying,   cyber  bullying, physical child abuse emotional child abuse, grooming and

              child sex abuse.

·  education services, including the Berry Street Education Model and Berry Street School

·  trauma services, including our Victoria-wide therapeutic service, Take Two

·  out-of-home care to provide foster care  for children and young people who have

              experienced trauma with a safe place to live.

·  parenting and family services to assist with increasing skills and knowledge so families

              and their children can be safe 

 

The strong focus is on reorientating the child and family system, family violence services and education system towards early intervention and prevention and to make sure that children and families receive the support they need before issues spiral out of control, and so they can stay safely together.





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