The Street University- What Is It And How Could It Contribute To Our Next Resource Boom?

Tony Abbott kept his promise in the 2014 Budget to fund ten Headspace centres across Australia, bringing their total to 100. But a review of the Headspace program, an initiative of the Rudd-Gillard governments, will follow. Matt and Naomi Noffs  are the founders of the Street Universities – taking the Ted Noffs legacy to a new and more contemporary level. They have their own ideas about ways to deal with mental health in the many young Australians they see at their Street University. On Wednesday 21 May 2014, Matt and Naomi Noffs spoke for The Sydney Institute about the Noffs Foundation and its new look Street Universities.

THE STREET UNIVERSITY- WHAT IS IT AND HOW COULD IT CONTRIBUTE TO OUR NEXT RESOURCE BOOM?

NAOMI NOFFS

It is a pleasure to be here tonight to talk about The Street University. So what is The Street University? Or more accurately the Street Universities.

The Street University is a social service that my husband Matt and I founded in 2007. The first Street University started in Liverpool in Sydney’s South West. It was a way to deal with the ongoing issues of crime, drug use, and general disengagement of young people within the area.

Liverpool had absorbed the drug and crime issues that had been swept out of Cabramatta in the clean up. There was at that time your standard assortment of social services. But the key pattern that we could see was that the services where focussed entirely on delivering their individual service to their selective clientele and that almost no service was focused on making sure that the people who most needed to access the services, where accessing the services.

The problem was large but we decided to start with the young people because we believed then, as we do now, that young people have a huge potential for changing themselves and their community around them.

The Street University is part of a lineage of ideas that stretch back through the work of the Ted Noffs Foundation, to the original programs that Ted and Margaret Noffs created – amongst them Lifeline, and of course the Wayside Chapel. Then Matt’s parents developed the first adolescent rehabilitation program, which both liberal and labour governments have been funding for over two decades.

We know how to affect change because everything we do, starts small as an experiment and gathers evidence before it grows. And that is no different for the Street University.

The Street University in Liverpool quickly began to see thousands of young people each year and delivered a large range of outcomes from increasing mental health, building healthier communities, to also reducing crime and contributing to a safer society.

After receiving funding to begin our work under the Howard government, a few years back, the federal Attorney Generals Department wrote to us, acknowledging our contribution to reducing crime in South West Sydney and the media concurred.

We share this success with the police of Liverpool who have also been a willing partner and a vital one.

These successes are equally shared by the community who helped us build the first Street University, and is now helping us build even more Street Universities.

And it was a small amount of funding for a large outcome.

Following on from the Liverpool campus we started Mt Druitt Street University and the outcomes there have also been significant.

So now here we stand in 2014. And if you have heard all the discussions relating to the budget, we are in the midst of a budget crisis, the era of manufacturing has died and the age of entitlement is over. The last few weeks have been dominated by the idea of how much each of us has to give to shoulder the national economic burden.

The resource boom that has brought us so much prosperity for the last few decades is in a gradual decline.

We are not the first nation to reach this stage, and nor will we be the last. However it is our turn to work out what our new role will be in this global economy. And it is our turn to realise that in an intellectual property economy our greatest resource is not our labour and not our minerals but our ideas.

We need to transition to being an Intellectual Property economy, and in an Intellectual economy our greatest resource is our young people.

Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook- these current gigantic companies, these economic powerhouses are all the ideas of young people.

The powerhouses of the future are ideas that we here today can’t even fathom. We can however shape them, we can be the generations that lay the ground for such feats. But how?

Entrepreneurs are shaped by their environment. We love hearing from the entrepreuneurs who invest in us about how they got started.

Just as it is with plants there is a series of factors that must be present for a seed to become a tree. Firstly you need the seed filled with coded genetic information, you need soil that is fertile and nutrient rich, you need water available in the right amounts, and of course sunlight.

Realising human potential is not dissimilar. You need the person- the source of ideas. You need a social and physical environment that is nutrient rich. And you need a source of opportunities.

As every entrepreneur in the room would acknowledge the path of innovation requires an idea, the realisation of the power of their own personality and drive, access to the raw materials be it the creative arts or technology, and the opportunity to experiment.

These are the real and actual mechanisms by which people and ideas thrive.

So by now it should be clear. If ‘we’ as a nation want to develop our young people as the next boom for the Australian economy we will need to ensure all young people have a social and physical environment that is stimulating, promotes their growth and provides the opportunities for them realise their full potential.

The Street University is one such way of realising potential. We work with the young people for whom a safe, educational and stimulating environment is not present, and for whom opportunities are rare. The Street University model is a space that engages young people in an environment full of the preconditions for developing individual human potential.

Now let me go down to the ground level and paint you a picture. Imagine a building filled with young people, inside is a basketball court, a room for dance, a recording studio, classrooms, a multimedia lab with great computers and industry level software, there are eating spaces and a garden bursting with vegetables and herbs, and a library room.

Now walk into the space, the energy is electric, the music is loud, there are dozens of young people talking and moving about. The young people look up. They see you there. They walk over to you. They shake your hand and welcome you. This is their space…. This is your space. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN HERE.

At the Street University we provide young people with a range of activities and programs. Our programs are vast and varied and designed to address the complexity of life.

Our programs incorporate four key mechanisms to develop and create lasting change. These mechanisms are dubbed “Hooks, Brakes, Cranes and Trains”.

Hooks invite, include and engage marginalised young people. These programs are the things that make us excited, draw us in, and help us to make an effort to bring something new into our lives. Naturally there are a lot of different things that excite different people- sports, music and arts, food, social connection to name just a few.

Brakes help resolve an issue that is preventing a young person from realising their potential. They stop the downward slide.

The issues are vast, there are probably about 20 issues we regularly address but let me take you through just five – Drug use, crime, family breakdown, lack of schooling, mental health issues. These issues wreck lives and trap young people undercutting their ability to get out of downward spirals. We help through counselling, professional support, peer support, rehabilitation, life coaching and other “Brake” programs that individually address these issues and help to unshackle a young person.

Cranes are programs create opportunities and lift a young person out of a current problematic situation and into a healthier one. These programs provide opportunities for young people to expand their interests, find their skills and develop their selves. Tertiary classes in philosophy or design, sports or dance programs, managing events for their community, bridging academic gaps so that they can re-engage in school or tertiary education or develop work skills. All of these programs extend young people leaving them in a better place.

Trains are pathways for young people to begin their life journey. These programs are the beginnings of lives in which young people are able to engage and interact meaningfully and prosperously with the larger world. From getting into meaningful work, going on to university, starting small businesses, or developing their own ideas.

But more than well conceived and multi faceted programs we engage young people. Most of us have been lucky to have someone, a teacher, a parent, an uncle or aunt, who found a way to inspire us. Who helped us to envision a space in the world for ourselves. Who challenged us to dream a little bigger.

The young people who attend the Street University do so voluntarily. There is no mandate for them to attend, no authority forcing them to do so. The young people attend because they choose too. They do this work- and it’s not always easy – because they are inherently self motivated to do so. They do so because we know how to engage young people.

The Street University helps young people find that motivation. We work with young people who are at point that they do not engage with services, they have not been met by the standard systems of education, family support and guidance and the regular or commercialised community services.

These are young people for whom the overarching message of their lives has been not to expect too much. We deliver a clear space for these young people to experience those intangible factors that help each person to realise their potential. An open, informative, stimulating environment filled with ongoing opportunities. For a marginalised young person this is nothing short of life changing.

But why is it important on a national scale? Why is that important to each and everyone of us? Especially those of us for whom that margin is a very long way away.

The answer is simple. As a country with a small population, and an even smaller population of young people it is in our national interest that each young person achieves their full potential. That each young person is able to contribute fully in our society. For the wealth and health of our nation we need each and every young person to be living a full, healthy and productive a life. This is what is needed for all of us to have a nation that is strong, healthy and prosperous.

Whether you look at this issue from a social justice perspective, a crime prevention perspective, a reduction of social welfare perspective, or an economic perspective the benefits are clear.

Investing in our young people will pay handsome dividends. Both in the productivity and potential earned and also in the prevention and reduction of social issues and the costs associated with them.

It is a common sense approach that has been proven to be true.  Good care costs less. If we are able to have young people access good care easily, address problems earlier and receive better outcomes from that care then we can move towards reducing costs and freeing up resources.

On the other hand poor care is costly as it results in the overuse, misuse and underuse of treatments and services and also the costs directly associated with ineffective care outcome. Outcomes including continuing cycles of unemployment or underemployment, poor mental and physical health, break down in family and community functioning, and crime.

The Street University offers an exciting addition to the service landscape when considering the provision of good care. It is neither an alternative nor a duplication of an existing service. But rather a service designed to fill a long standing gap.

Mainstream traditional services have always struggled to reach the more marginalised or complex individuals and communities. To access a service requires an assumed level of social functioning and participation. It requires one to determine a problem, research the available options, identify your most appropriate service and determine how to access that service.

The Street University, however, is not a traditional service but rather an interface between service and community. Its goal is to develop individuals and communities and to deliver knowledge through social and communal practices. As such the Street University acts as bridge between traditional and mainstream services and marginalised young people. Ensuring timely and appropriate access for young people, assisting traditional services to provide quality care, and maximising the social outcomes for all.

The Street University is a one option to a traditional dilemma and one that I believe can make individuals, communities and indeed the entire nation a richer one in every sense of the word.