Albury secondary schools 'risk' project might show the way on violence
An innovative program to detect early signs of mental illness or the risk of homelessness in Albury students could be used as a model for case managing domestic violence victims.
The Albury Project is set to launch in term two at three Albury state secondary schools: Albury, James Fallon and Murray.
It has come about after Albury's yes unlimited was successful in obtaining government funding for the program, based on the Geelong Project.
yes unlimited chief executive Di Glover said the Albury Project would involve every student in every year level undertaking a once-yearly survey.
"It includes the Kessler 10, which is a mental health survey," Ms Glover said.
"But it also targets questions around life at home, around identifying early indicators of mental health, early indicators of risk of homelessness and early indicators of risk of school disengagement."
Such systems change, Ms Glover said, set an example for how a far more integrated approach could effectively target domestic and family violence, for everything from crisis care to early intervention and prevention work.
yes unlimited has seen that achieved through the centralised intake assessment system it used for tackling homelessness in the Albury region.
"I'm a strong believer that the only way we can make real change in these complex social issues is if we do that integration and approach these issues from a system perspective," she said.
Ms Glover it was about maximising available resources to create a more workable system.
"That is really, really difficult, particularly for funders to get their heads around and for organisations to get their head around. It's complex work," she said.
"But it's the only way we can tackle the big stuff."
The Albury Project, she said, was based on what was called the community of school and services model.
Once students completed the survey, those identified as being at risk would be placed into one of three tiers.
The top tier involved full "wraparound" case management services, family work and "really getting in there and finding out what's going on and helping out".
"The second one will be students that will have identified some risk," she said.
"It might be from some monitoring, from school work programs."
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The third tier would the lower-risk students who might just be monitored by their school.
Ms Glover said the Albury Project was not just about systems work, "about us going in and doing work".
"It's about the schools working with our staff, working with headspace, working with Albury Community Mental Health to actually design an intervention for that particular young person and their family," she said.
"That's going to be challenging and it will be pretty difficult.
"There's a lot of work, but there's a lot of goodwill.
"And we've got the support of Professor David McKenzie, who is the academic who has worked so much on this model and supported the Geelong Project."
Geelong's experience, Ms Glover said, garnered well for Albury.
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"They've had some amazing results, to the point where I think they had a 40 per cent reduction in homeless crisis presentations, a 20 per cent reduction in early school leaving," she said.
"The outcomes data that they're able to provide speaks for itself.
"You can't argue with it, so that's pretty exciting."
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