With your support, Lighthouse carers can continue their challenging and important work for as long as it takes for our kids to begin to heal and thrive.
Our Lighthouse carers are the heart of our organisation. They are the living example of our values, and, together with our expert clinical team, they are the driving force behind our impactful outcomes. It takes courage and determination to show up on the frontline when a young person might be expressing their trauma by turning away from you. We sincerely appreciate our carers and every step they take alongside our brave young people.
Lighthouse has taken care of a record number of young people in this past financial year. We have supported 71 babies, children and young people, which is 25% more than we ever have before and we are continuing to grow. Every dollar you give ensures there is always someone there who is trained and supported to help our kids begin to heal and thrive.
RICKY’S STORY
Being a carer isn’t an easy job. It’s full of complexity and showing up for your ‘9 to 5’ can sometimes leave you in tears, with physical scars or ‘undone’. But it’s as rewarding, as it is challenging. For carers like Ricky, it’s the emotional support through reflective practice and layered trauma-informed training that supports them to show up every day. Ricky’s passion to make a difference in young lives and his desire for a strong support system led him here.
“In my studies I had heard a lot of stories about people getting burnt out or just not getting the support they needed. Everything I heard about Lighthouse assured me they did things differently and that they supported their staff as much as the young people in their programs.”
Working with young people at such a vital point of a person’s development is ‘pretty special’ to carers like Ricky and quality support and intervention can make all the difference in the trajectory of their lives.
Being a carer is multifaceted and you really need to be prepared for anything. This includes supporting young people with everyday tasks like learning or making a nutritious breakfast, to the much more taxing role of being there alongside someone suffering with depression or talking through the details of their trauma.
When a young person shares with their carer specific details about their trauma, it can be overwhelming. It can take a toll to hold someone else’s pain. That’s why at Lighthouse, we prioritise reflective practice. This means that trained clinicians support our carers to make sense of their thoughts and feelings so they return to the young people in a sensitive and purposeful way. This sensitivity and purposefulness is central to supporting our young people to grow and heal.
When asked what Ricky wants our supporters to know about Lighthouse, he said
“When you grow up with a ‘normal’ childhood, you may tend to assume that’s the way it is for everyone. But sadly, that’s not the case. It’s sad that people can get quickly judged for their life situation when they didn’t have an upbringing that supported them the way they needed. Unique programs like Lighthouse’s aims to fill that gap and catch these young people that otherwise fall through the system.”
