The program is unique as it supports young people within the Leaving Care space, who are transitioning from living in Residential Care into independence. These young people are a particularly vulnerable group within our community. This cohort often have to develop independent living skills and manage on their own much earlier than other young people, leaving their home and losing the care-team supports at 18.

Lighthouse’s Therapeutic Youth Program ensures a different experience, by providing on-going support post 18, with young people being able to remain in their home, a model rarely seen in Victoria.

The program works closely with DFFH, external agencies, local community members and the Lighthouse community to ensure wrap around support continues, following the young person turning 18. Furthermore, the program provides opportunities to transition into a Lighthouse Transitional Tailored Care Program when ready.

At Lighthouse, we know that a safe, nurturing, consistent home environment for children provides them with the best chance at a healthy and fulfilling life, which is why our highly successful Young Parents and Babies Program provides targeted support for both young parents and their children. This program provides therapeutic care in Lighthouse homes for vulnerable young parents and their children, helping them heal from trauma they have experienced and build healthy relationships and establish routines with their children. The Young Parents and Babies Program addresses the root causes of youth homelessness by interrupting the cycle of intergenerational trauma and homelessness. Therapeutic Carers and Case Managers in the program support young parents by role modelling parenting techniques, teaching essential life skills and helping them to develop strong attachments with their babies, leading to more young families being successfully transitioned into fully independent living.

Lighthouse’s therapeutic case management provides appropriate tailored interventions for each young parent and baby, including external maternal and child health professionals, pediatricians and speech therapists.  Social skills are developed through playgroups, music sessions, meditation and baby massage. When they feel ready, parents are assisted to reconnect with education and training, professional work and other goals they want to pursue.

The Young Women’s Freedom and the Young Parents and Babies special focus programs has both Therapeutic and Transitional homes, dependent on the level of support needed for both the young parents and their children. All homes within this program are specifically designed for young parents and babies, and are equipped with high-chairs, cots, toys, educational materials and other parenting resources. Modelling good parenting, and teaching essential life skills, the experienced carers in these homes help the young parents establish strong bonds of attachment with their baby.

The Young Parents and Babies program was established in 2010 with the support of Lighthouse Life Member and Founding Patron Vicki Vidor OAM, and has already yielded life-changing results and enduring outcomes for two generations of vulnerable young people. A 2020 program evaluation found that the program not only helped young parents feel safer and build heathier attachments with their children, it also supported families to stay together. Young parents felt more confident in their parenting skills and were able to transition from the program into more stable housing as compared to their housing on joining the program.

The Young Women’s Freedom Program began in 2018 in response to an urgent need to provide safe homes and therapeutic care to young women escaping, or at risk of, modern slavery practices including forced marriage and domestic servitude, as well as other forms of gender-based violence. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by modern slavery and exploitation. This program is currently in operation across both Therapeutic and Transitional homes, supporting young women from various cultural and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Young Women’s Freedom focuses on providing a safe and secure home for vulnerable young women where they can regain agency over their lives. Lighthouse supports young women in the program with connection to culture and self through tailored therapeutic intervention, implementing a holistic care team of support in collaboration with innovative external services, as well as supporting the young women to have sustainable connection to family and community

A 2020, evaluation of the Young Women’s Freedom Program demonstrated that young women in the program experienced a deep sense of physical and emotional containment by their Lighthouse Therapeutic Care Team, the environment of the safe home itself and Lighthouse wider therapeutic community. Young women felt that the homes themselves provide a physical holding function which contributed to internal feelings of safety and comfort, and that they were able to develop trusting relationships with each other, their Therapeutic Carers, and for some, more positive relationships with their families of origin and local communities.