School Focused Youth Services

(SFYS)

Supporting young people in their communities...

Through School Focused Youth Services (SFYS), schools and community organisations support at risk young people who require prevention or early intervention strategies to assist their learning, development, health and wellbeing. The objective of the SFYS is to ensure that at risk young people are well supported in their communities, that risk factors are addressed or mitigated and that they continue to be engaged and connected to education.

BATForce’s SFYS Coordinators will work collaboratively with coordinators and wellbeing staff in schools to identify the needs of schools in relation to at risk young people and the services available in the community that may be able to address them. In addition, they will also establish mechanisms to obtain advice from schools with which we work and other community agencies to identify the services available in the community that meet the needs of at-risk young people.

Evidence-based strategies

SFYS agencies must be committed to adopting evidence- based strategies and innovative practices to improve the outcomes for at risk young people. Partnerships between schools, School Focused Youth Service Agencies and community providers should be based on solid quantitative and qualitative data and contain measurable outcomes that can be rigorously demonstrated and evaluated.
Work plans exist for each school network in our clusters and work will be more collaborative than in the past where programs were predominately developed and implemented as per individual school needs.

The BATforce School Focused Youth Service is supported by the Victorian Government.