27°C | Tuesday January 14, 2025 
1 December 2023
By Hannah Wilcox
Youth homelessness is on the rise in the Lower North Shore, with concerns that a lack of funding and support for mental health and disability services is the driving force.
The Sun sat down with Lisa Graham, CEO of Taldumande Youth Services, to explore how the service is changing the lives of struggling young people and what needs to be done to make a difference.
Located at 40 Chandos Street St Leonards, Taldumande is a non-for-profit organisation looking to support young people aged 12 to 24 years and their families across Sydney.
Starting 47 years ago originally as a women’s shelter, it quickly opened its doors to any and all young people during the 1970s.
“I think that would have probably been out of need,” Graham explained.
“Then in the 80s there were a lot of issues within the out of home care system, [with] a lot of young people running away from their foster care placements.”
“They were 12 to 18. They would usually be [at the refuge] for a short term stay until they were placed back in another place, in another foster care home. So it was a dreadful system,” she added.
“It was pretty messy.”
Around 100 children a year turned up to the refuge during the 80s and 90s and established it as the youth service it operates as currently.
In 2022-23, Taldumande supported 1078 young people and their families within their programs. However, 324 had to be turned away at a point of need due to a lack of resources and funding for the service.
“A lot of people think there aren’t any issues in the north [because] it’s privileged,” Graham continued.
“In fact, most youth homelessness is caused by behavioural issues or mental health. It’s not caused by a lack of money. Graham found those suffering youth homelessness in the west were often experiencing neglect and/or poverty.
“Whereas over this way [in the North Shore] that’s not usually the case,” she said.
“Usually the young people are very complex. Some are on the autism spectrum or have complex mental health.”
“Mum and Dad are trying their best to look after the young person, but they have other siblings and it becomes very draining,” Graham added.
Taldumande also offers in-home programs to work within family situations, but often young people reach out some time after they’ve left home.
“So some have already well and truly left the family home, and have been couch surfing,” she explained.
“They’re living with a family member, and then another family member, and then their friend.”
“That’s how homelessness is for young people.”
The youth service offers a range of programs and services, including beds at their crisis shelters in addition to more long-term semi-independent and supported independent accommodation programs in housing across the Willoughby, Allambie Heights, Pennant Hills, North Sydney, Northern Beaches, Hornsby and Ryde regions.
Intervention or in-home support is available through the Family Restoration and Preservation Program, with specialist case management who work to reduce family breakdown for children aged 12 to 15.
Youth community services such as Aftercare Support and the Outreach Program are also run by Taldumande to offer young people and their families practical assistance and support.
Young people who have been referred to the organisation through Youth Justice NSW and have been assessed as having a medium to high risk of offending are applicable for the Young Offenders Intervention Program, or children and young people aged 12– 17 years held inappropriately in custody, and in need of crisis accommodation can access accommodation within the service.
There are also two programs for young people vulnerable to becoming victims of forced marriage.
Graham revealed the lack of support and resources available to youth experiencing mental health struggles and disabilities is the driving cause behind the high levels of displacement.
“100% of the clients that come to us have mental health [issues] though many of them are not diagnosed,” Graham said.
“So we work very quickly to get them diagnosed. Many children and young people we see have ADHD, [or] autism and or complex mental health issues.”
Taldumande uses specific therapeutic frameworks and evidenced based practices to respond to children and young people with mental health concerns, but often struggle to fund diagnostic work.
Graham added a formal diagnosis allows them to go ‘leaps and bounds’ in providing information and guidance to the young person’s school and/or family on how to support them.
“There’s a lot of systemic issues around this which is a shame.”
Graham explained that a young person aged 12 to 14, who has already gone through multiple years of education, may have received negative feedback from their educators and suffer a low sense of self as a result.
“Our young people have to deal with normal adolescent issues let alone living in a homeless service without family”
Graham believes change is needed systemically before these figures start to slow.
“It’s hard because a lot could be resolved if it was met earlier and if in the education system teachers were trained to identify these kinds of issues early on.”
“The changes would be massive.”
Private schools are starting to employ teams of psychologists, Graham added, which is a really good start. However, she has found the NSW state system is not as keen to have multi -disciplinary professionals available to their students.
“Well, in the state system, there might be one counsellor to three.”
“The answers are all there. That’s the thing – It’s the lack of funding that is the issue Graham revealed.
When asked what those answers were, the CEO said: “we would run wrap-around services with education and health programs running within the service.”
“We can actually build a program and design a model that actually targets the needs of young people with disabilities within the homeless system”. she added.
“There’d be more medical support there. There’d be more psychological support there.”
“So one stop shops are something that we would like to do and have a more “
Refuges in New South Wales such as Taldumande are currently supported by youth workers and caseworkers who do a ‘wonderful job’, but Graham feels it would be greatly improved if specialist psychologist were funded to carry out internal assessment and diagnosis’.
“One of the other constraints is that there’s waiting lists that go as long as your arm.”
A formal diagnosis can set a young person back $2500 to $3000 which is where Taldumande relies on its partnerships and funding.
80 percent of the youth service’s funding comes from the government, but it still isn’t enough to keep up with the rising demand.
“[The government] only partially funds evidence based models. When you partially fund something that’s been well researched and needs all of the elements within the model it doesn’t work,” Graham explained.
“We’re going about ways of trying to do a lot of fundraising, but you get caught up in the actual work and fundraising falls behind. Unit costs in the homelessness sector is extremely low so we do our best to raise money through other streams.”
Taldumande also receives funding from a number of different organisations and corporations, including Byora Foundation, Victoria Cross, the Chappell Foundation, the Neilson Foundation and VGI Partners Foundation.
“We do get about 20% of fundraised money, and that fundraised money is far more flexible and can actually be directed into real need, whereas government money is not flexible,” Graham explained.
The organisation will be holding a gala dinner on March 21 as their major fundraising event for the year. Held at the Ivy Ballroom at 320 George Street, the ‘Taldumande Family Dinner’ evening will kick off at 6.30pm hosted by comedian Jean Kittson and a variety of special guests.
Tickets will be available in January and can be purchased by contacting taldyevents@taldumande.org.au