Operationalising the Model

Staffing

The Education First Youth Foyer Model is contingent on a mix of paid staff (including those who work in the Foyer itself and/or the TAFE institute) and volunteers (including mentors). To deliver on the Open Talent approach, the multidisciplinary staff and volunteer team will have a range of talents, skills, training and life experiences. EFY Foyer staff will be entrepreneurial with the capacity to source opportunities, networks and resources for their students. Most importantly, they will hold strong beliefs in the abilities and capacity of young people to change their circumstances and build sustainable lives.

For a 40-bed facility staffed 24/7, the following staffing structure is recommended:

• Foyer Manager (day time, e.g., between 9am–5pm)
• Team Leader (day time, e.g., a mix of shifts covering 7am–11pm)
• 5 Youth Development Workers (day time, e.g., a mix of shifts covering 7am–11pm)
• 2 Youth Development Workers (night shift, e.g., 11pm–7am, following a stand-up rather than a sleep-over model).

The level of staffing will vary depending on the time of day. Most EFY Foyer students will be undertaking education activities during the day and so will be engaging in group activities, meeting their Youth Development Workers (YDWs) to review their individualised Learning Plan and engaging in living skills activities in the late afternoon or early evening. In addition to Foyer staff, there will also be TAFE staff working with the EFY Foyer.

There are periods when the staffing model may need to be subsidised with extra resources, namely:

• during the Pre-Foyer assessment phase
• during school/college/university holidays
• to back-fill roles to facilitate full staff training.

Activities of EFY Foyer staff

Some of the activities staff will engage in are:

• the selection of appropriate students
• the assessment of student skills and challenges
• the development, implementation and regular review of Learning Plans in partnership with the students
• the development of individual learning timetables to support students’ engagement in education and training
• undertaking activities with students to build confidence and rapport as well as living skills (e.g., group cooking activities, movie nights)
• building and maintaining partnerships with relevant service providers
• advocating for, and supporting, students to access appropriate assistance
• building and maintaining relationships with the local community and community groups
• supporting students to access employment opportunities, including brokering placements where appropriate
• assisting students to access accommodation after Foyer, including potentially brokering specific accommodation arrangements.

NB: All EFY Foyer Staff Position Descriptions are in the Education First Youth Foyer Policies and Procedures Toolkit.

Attributes and values of the EFY Foyer staff

Foyer Manager

The Manager will be a person who inspires, and who is innovative, entrepreneurial and policy minded. S/he can lead a team, advocate, and engage with elected officials, the Management Committee, the media, external services, community and business and can further develop the Open Talent approach.

Either the Foyer Manager or the Team Leader must have experience of working in congregate accommodation settings, preferably with young people or adults.

Team Leader

The Team Leader will be a person who can mentor, provide leadership to staff and students, liaise with various stakeholders, embed the OT approach through practice reflection, and oversee the development of tools and resources including training for students in OT/advocacy skills, sourcing appropriate training for staff, and advocating at a broader level for structural change. This position is key to embedding the Open Talent approach.

Staff supervision and building the team are keys areas of practice under this role. The ability to coach both young people and staff is vital.

Youth Development Workers

These positions will attract a diverse staff from Community Development, Educational, Employment, Arts and Culture, Recreational, Advocacy and Housing/Welfare backgrounds.

Workers will each be responsible for 10 students, with whom they will meet on a weekly basis to develop and monitor their individualised Learning Plans. Each of these positions could have a specific brief (e.g., education or employment, or health and wellbeing), so that all areas of the Model – education, employment, health and wellbeing, social connections, civic participation, and housing and living skills – are covered.

TAFE staff (including Developing Independence Teacher)

The EFY Foyer’s key partner organisations and the TAFE commit to promoting and developing the EFY Foyer Model to support sustainable economic and social participation of young people who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness. Collectively, these organisations work in a collaborative partnership to embed the EFY Foyer within TAFE programs, facilities and resources.

The TAFE will nominate staff who will be the key contact points for the EFY Foyer. These positions may vary in accordance with the specific TAFE resources and staffing model, but at least one position – the Developing Independence (or DI) Teacher – will be responsible for delivering the Cert. I in DI.

Other potential staffing roles

The integrity of the Model to deliver on all of the 6 Service Offers will rely on EFY Foyers seeking funding from varied sources, and recruiting additional staff who can deliver on the Offers in conjunction with the core Foyer staff. This, along with the recruitment and management of volunteers and mentors, is a vital focus for EFY Foyers. General position descriptions for all staffing roles can be found online as part of the current policies and procedures relating to the Framework.

...the multidisciplinary staff and volunteer team will have a range of talents, skills, training and life experiences.

Governance

A cornerstone of the EFY Foyer Model are the strategic, multi-level governance partnerships, supported by a range of formal and informal agreements. These partnerships and agreements are also critical to realising the broader ambitions of the Victorian EFY Foyer program, which are to achieve wider policy program and practice reform for young people who experience social exclusion.

The EFY Foyer’s top-down, bottom-up approach to governance is informed by mounting research and policy evidence that partnering and collaboration between government and community sector organisations leads to more holistic, streamlined and innovative initiatives. As Shergold notes, multi-level collaboration, a core principle of the Model, ‘offers many opportunities to deliver better outcomes for people’.⁴⁹ These include the development of:

• evidence-based policy informed by all parties involved in community services
• more integrated service delivery with reduced duplication
• increased innovation and sharing of best practice
• increased effectiveness, efficiency and accountability based on shared outcomes.

Partnering is most appropriate when partners acting together can create more value than when they act alone, and it is possible to employ either contracting or collaboration as a mode of coordination. ⁵⁰

In EFY Foyers, top-down governance:

• ensures integrated responses across departments – namely, DHS, DET and Department of Health – to enable more effective outcomes for young people
• maximises capacity to influence policy and program reform for young people
• achieves efficient and effective delivery of services and education program
• creates a mandate for regional and area-based services and programs
• enables ‘draw down’ of diverse funding sources supporting the viability of the program.

Middle-level governance:

• facilitates the establishment and resourcing of steering groups
• enables partnerships to build on the 6 Service Offers.

Bottom-up governance:

• ensures the needs and aspirations of students are achieved
• enables the experiences of young people to inform policy and practice
• develops young people’s capacity to speak out on issues that are of concern to them.

Governance of Victoria’s Education First Youth Foyers

A high-level inter-agency committee oversees all Foyers, each of which is founded on a partnership between a TAFE institute and at least two community organisations with complementary areas of expertise in housing, social policy and/or education. The following figure shows the governance structure of the Victorian EFY Foyers with explanatory notes about the role and structure of its various managing bodies.