Our History
For a relatively young charity Youth Focus has come a long way. The timeline below charts the development of the organisation including its key milestones:
1994
The organisation commences as Youth Charities Trust from an office in the city run mainly by volunteers with a professional staff of 1.5 people. The primary focus was peer support camps for around 80 young people aged 14 – 18 years. Our annual turnover was approximately $100,000.
1998 – 1999
We were selected by government to run a pilot project entitled ‘Prevention of Youth Suicide and Self Harm’. Funding totalling $170 000 was provided allowing us to employ 3 new staff. This period also saw our programs extended to a full time counselling service while family counselling commenced with a part time counsellor.
2000 – 2001
We moved into renovated offices in West Leederville with the help of PM constructions and Gus Irdi as appointed as our new Chairman. The Board was expanded and a CEO was appointed (Jenny Allen). The government recognised our work on the pilot project and we were selected as service provider.
During this time Woodside became our major corporate partner which provided us with the capacity for a significant expansion seeing us employ more counselling staff and developing our work model.
2002 – 2003
The Wind Over Water Foundation commenced their long standing partnership during this period and this has been a cornerstone to the development of our Peer Support program. With the support of Hawaiian and Lotterywest we were able to secure our new premises in Goodwood Parade in Burswood.
Our services staff grew to cope with the ever expanding client demand and we undertook a significant policy and procedures assessment. During this period the Youth Focus charity house concept was born.
2003 – 2004
The Ride for Youth was born in 2003, the event was the brain children of a number of recreational cyclists and it sees riders pedal from Albany to Perth. Since its inception to 2010 it has raised almost $4,000,000 to support our work.
Worsley Alumina began their support of our South West project of ‘Suicide Prevention in the South West’ and in total we are seeing over 300 clients and 40 families. The Ride for Youth event tops $300,000 in fundraising per year and the ‘Night of Nights’ ball is inaugurated in July 2004
2005 / 2006
By now we are seeing 500 clients and 160 families with a budget of $1.5M and 18.6 employees. An office is opened in Mandurah and Telethon begins their support of our metropolitan counselling service. The Ride for Youth raises $400,000 per year and the first Youth Focus Charity house is built with the support of Scott Park and Redink Homes
2009
We hit a current record of 840 clients and 240 families serviced by a team of 25 in our Services team and 8 in our Business team. Our budget has now increased to $2.7m
2010
By the end of this year we anticipate that we would have provided one on one counselling to around 1,100 young people and more than 200 families. Our full staff compliment will be in excess of 41 people and our turnover is budgeted to be in excess of $4m.
