BoysTown

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (15:26): Yesterday, I had the absolute pleasure of catching up again with the good people at BoysTown at Elizabeth. Over the last six years or so, I have watched this organisation go from strength to strength in the north. I was there, as I said, six or so years ago, as part of my previous employment, at the grand opening and spent a few hours yesterday with regional manager Stephen Wales having a good look at all of the work they are doing for disadvantaged and unemployed kids in the north.

For those of us not familiar with BoysTown, and most of us in the northern electorates would be, I think, as would the member for Frome and perhaps the member for Stuart, because they do some work in Port Pirie, BoysTown is a not-for-profit provider of employment services for disadvantaged kids in our community, but they really are so much more. BoysTown starts from the position that everyone has the right to a future, everyone, and so it strives to look after those who fall through the cracks in our society.

While predominantly focusing on young people and their work and education needs, BoysTown also helps families experiencing homelessness or domestic violence, parents looking for guidance, the long-term unemployed and others who, as I said, may have accidentally fallen through the cracks. According to their own figures, last year, BoysTown helped over 275,000 kids, young people and families: 2,150 kids received counselling, accommodation and/or support from their face-to-face services and a further 9,500 contacted the Kids Helpline, which is a 24-hour counselling service; and 8,800 young people were counselled and/or given training, education and employment opportunities from face-to-face services and a further 108,500 through the Kids Helpline.

On top of this, 14,500 parents were counselled, accommodated and/or received help with parenting. In addition, a further over 2,000 job seekers over the age of 25 years were provided with employment services and over 2,000 community members and others participated in the Parental and Community Engagement Program (PACE).

This year, BoysTown is celebrating its 20^th year in South Australia. They help around 1,000 young people aged between 14 and 25 each year across northern Adelaide and Port Pirie in the Mid North. They deliver youth specialist employment services, flexible learning programs for young people disengaged from school, parenting programs for young parents and, importantly, paid transitional employment. This paid transitional employment takes the form of social enterprises that help build confidence, teamwork and employability skills in young people. I saw this firsthand yesterday.

Stephen Wales took me out to the Playford Alive redevelopment at Munno Para to see a house they are building using their young clients, under the supervision of qualified tradespeople and a youth worker, Sarah Searle, who provides non-vocational support to participants if and when it is needed. It is pretty inspiring stuff, I have to say.

While we were at the site, I spoke with Dean Gibson, who is a carpenter by trade, and is the construction supervisor who manages the social enterprises. Also on site were staff enterprise trainers and mentors Heath Clasohm, another carpenter, and Jacquie Wylie, a qualified painter. All three of them were clearly very passionate about the work they were doing and the difference that they are making in the lives of the young people who work with them. Indeed, many of the kids they take on end up leaving pretty quickly, which is kind of the point, but is also not the quickest way to get a house built. As Stephen told me, it is a nice problem to have.

While I was there, of course, I spoke with some of the participants, all local kids who were turning their lives around through this on-the-job training that BoysTown offers. I arrived at smoko, so I was able to have a pretty good chat with Josh, Ashleigh, Jarrod, and particularly to a young man named Joe Petrizza, about what the program meant to them and where they were heading next. Indeed, it was Joe's last day yesterday and today he started a full-time job with Pallet Co. He was clearly grateful for the leg up that BoysTown had given him. Another young worker who I did not meet, unfortunately, is Ben Lyas. I was told that he had recently found work with Fulton Hogan as part of their work with the NBN rollout.

BoysTown is still a fairly small outfit, at least in South Australia, but it is making a big difference to the lives of some of our most vulnerable kids. It is also worth mentioning BoysTown volunteers like Bob Wilhelm and Lynn Smith, who give their own time to support young people who need remedial literacy and numeracy support.

The house, which BoysTown hopes is the first of many, will be completed early next year. They are hoping to have a grand opening and invite the Premier along. I would encourage anyone with an interest in youth employment and services for vulnerable youth to take a trip out to Elizabeth or to Port Pirie and have a look at the work BoysTown is doing.