Some of the advantages to using the 'Partnerships Addressing Disadvantage' model or 'PAD' model, is that really, it takes a complex social problem that is very difficult to fund because it's expensive. I mean when you look at the cohort that we work with, we work with people who have slipped through the cracks of the system for a long time.
It's a real partnership between our organisation and the state government, and that changes the dynamic a lot. It's a real true partnership in the design of the program, negotiating the program and running the program.
It's a model that is about payment-by-results, and so, 'Compass' is a leaving care program in which we're targeting 200 young people exiting out of home care, and over a course of two years, the model provides to these young people, we have to produce three outcomes: we have to reduce their homelessness, reduce their hospitalisations, and reduce their contact with the juvenile justice system.
The 'Side-by-Side' program is Australia’s first primary school-based social impact bond, and it's being delivered by Berry Street in partnership with the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency. The program's aims are to improve school attendance, engagement and learning outcomes for some of Victoria's most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
'Living Learning' is a new and innovative program, we're responding to an identified need that a lot of our young people that attend our school, have had really low attendance previously and also a lot of them are experiencing mental health conditions.
'Journey to Social Inclusion' is a three-year program, that works with people who have experienced long-term or chronic homelessness. We work to end homelessness. Really, our job is to break the cycle of chronic homelessness, we house people within the first six months of working with them and then we continue to work with them for three years.
To date, we've got 158 young people through the Compass program. Now, what's fantastic to see is that a number of outcomes are already being realised. 38 of these participants, by the way, are indigenous; so, we've got about 87 percent of our Compass young people involved in the program, involved with education and training, about 44 of those participants involved in TAFE, and, how about this, we've got eight going to university which is fantastic as well, and we've got two-thirds of our young people achieving employment whilst they've been with the Compass program. and despite the challenges in delivering the program throughout 2021, attendance data is showing significant improvements for some students and a steady improvement to attendance for the whole student cohort.
The results we're seeing with the young people are really quite outstanding, and also the interesting dynamic between provider, government and investor is really something new and something that we need to continue to probably utilise and take opportunity with.
We've been able to really have the luxury of time with people to build these relationships and get these outcomes, and it also allows us to really focus on what's important.
It's a wonderful way of working, I really appreciate the partnership element of it.
It really puts us as the NGO and the government on as true equals in the partnership, and I think, I'm really interested in the innovation that these sorts of programs can generate, and it's been a fantastic program so far. I'm really looking forward to the next couple of years and see the outcomes that we achieve.
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