2023, Year in Review at Connect Kids
Happy new year to all our loyal supporters and friends. 2023 was a huge year for the charity and very much a transitional year. I can finally say that the years of hard work have paid off and we are now on a sustainable footing financially and one of the most effective providers of services for at-risk children on the Sunshine Coast.
That hard work is now being recognised by others in the community and we were awarded two major grants from ETC Ltd and EndEd Inc during the year. It's particularly pleasing to see charities supporting each other in this space. I hope that one day we will be in a position to return the favour to the EndEd charity who do such amazing work for young people struggling with eating disorders.
Our NDIS arm has provided us with a regular income and gives us far more confidence in being able to plan for the future. We are extremely proud of our achievements in this area. Our participants tend to be young people with complex mental health issues and who often struggle to find adequate and experienced Support Workers. We have been able to provide the support necessary and some of the results that our dedicated carers have achieved with the people they are supporting is truly remarkable. We now have eight Support staff who work with Connect Kids to assist people living with disabilities.
The financial security that the grants and the NDIS income has afforded us has enabled us to start to bring a number of our dreams and aspirations into reality. Our biggest challenge to date has been our ability to fund the staff needed to achieve our dreams.
The funding increases have enabled us to employ another Intensive Support person, Sonja Michells, who has done a remarkable job since joining us.
We've been able to secure longer hours for Gary Taylor, who runs the mentoring program to ensure that we continue to grow.
Our admin Guru, Trish Brown, now has the extended hours she needs to keep everything humming along.
And Jason Riddel, our mad scientist, who runs our coding program that brings joy to many young people on the spectrum, continues to play an integral role in our growth. (As was our initial goal this is proving to be a good transition-to-work program for young people on the spectrum with an IT bent.)
While it's a relief to have some comfort over our financial position, we are still quite some way away from achieving the level of funding we need for our mission. We won't be satisfied until we feel that we are in a position to support all those at risk young people in the community that can't access adequate Supports.
Summer School Holidays program with Maroochy Surf School.
One of our challenges is that every time we bed down one project we see the need for numerous other support projects, and find it hard not to rise to the challenge. While our Mentoring Program is our headline, we often find that there are children in the program, or who are referred to us, that present complex issues well outside of the scope of mentoring to address.
When this happens we employ an intensive support model to ensure that the children, or the families behind those children, get the support necessary so that they can thrive.
While many much larger organisations receive significant Government funding to provide this level of support, we provide this service free of charge and fund this work purely out of our own funds.
This area of the charity requires significantly more time to achieve successful outcomes than any other area of our business. However, it is critical if we are to ensure that no child is left behind.
The support areas we've been successful in providing solutions include
Housing
Education
Employment
Collaborative health care and mental health solutions
Counselling
Child placement
And when possible critical basic financial support.
We have been overwhelmed by the generosity and support from the community & our partners.
Our most exciting new initiative that we've undertaken this year is providing direct in school supports. More than at any time in the past, schools are struggling to manage school disengagements and complex behaviours, resulting in teacher burn out and mental stress.
Schools often don't have the time or the resources to manage the complex behaviours in the classroom. By providing direct onsite support for these young people we can help them develop strategies to better manage their behaviors, ensure that they engage in a more constructive and positive way in the classroom, ensure a better classroom environment for all and take pressure off the teaching staff.
We currently run this program through Arethusa Flexi School in Maroochydore. This school typically engages those children that fall through the cracks of mainstream education and would otherwise be disengaged from education. These students often present with quite challenging and complex issues.
ConnectKids feel that if our model of in-school support is a success in this environment its application within the broader mainstream environment should be ensured. Ultimately we would like to hope that the success of this model will be embraced within the broader mainstream education environment. We'd like to thank ETC Ltd for providing the seed funding needed for us to get this program up and running.
The lead up to Christmas this year was particularly hectic but very rewarding. The generosity from within the community was extraordinary. We were donated 30 hampers from the XXXX Church in Nambour to give to families in need. Kawana Physio Therapy Center did an amazing present drive for us ensuring that children had presents for Christmas, thanks Sally!! Your Weekly Preview invited us to submit families into the Adopt a Family campaign. The generosity of those that adopted a family was quite extraordinary and I can assure you all that this is an amazing initiative. Between our organisation and the others that participated, Your Weekly Preview were able to ensure that over 200 families had food on the table and presents under their tree. And finally a huge thank you to Headspace who sponsored our “orphans Christmas lunch” that we held to ensure that those young people who we support had a “family” to go to and a real Christmas Lunch.
Our present drive thanks to Kawana Physio Therapy
An end of year review would not be complete without thanking all of those who contribute to helping us help at-risk young people in the community. The unsung heroes are our mentors who term up week-in, week-out to ensure that children have a positive role model in their lives.
Some of the stories and outcomes are extraordinary and this drives our passion to continue what we know works. Maureen Condon deserves special praise. Maureen is our volunteer admin lady who turns up rain hail or shine every Wednesday to help us get through our admin workload armed with morning tea to get us through the day.
ConnectKids are committed to ensuring that those precious funds that the community donates goes directly to helping those who need help. Where possible we seek help from businesses in the community to help us stretch our dollars as far as possible. Core Fitness and Teens Take Control provide us with free office space. It's a pleasure working next to these guys and their amazing program for young men who have disengaged from mainstream school has been a great resource for many of the young people who are referred to us.
MWD Accounts have been doing our accounts pro-bono from day one. Annette Koch and the team do our accounts month-in, month-out without ever expecting any thanks or reward. Thank You!!
Lauren and her team at (now) Thea Media approached us this year with the offer to take over our Marketing which up to that point had been very ad hoc and we were not getting the word out around what we were doing. They have also built our new website free of charge (which was in desperate need of an upgrade). I can’t thank Lauren and her team enough for the efforts and passion you've shown since joining us.
You can never thank everyone and someone is always left out. If that's you please understand that it's an oversight and that your efforts are greatly valued and appreciated.
None of this could happen without the funds to pay our amazing team of people who are Connect Kids. The following list of organisations and people contributed to our funding in 2023
Maeve Hospitality (major Sponsor) Thanks Scott Armstrong and his team.
ETC Inc (Grant provider)
EndED, thanks Mark and Gail (Major Sponsor)
Thea Media (previously Dash Agency), thanks team
CSI Soil Testing, thanks Leah and Brian
Fox Servicing Group, thanks Sue and Dan
The Encouragement Foundation, thanks John
MB Financial Group, thanks team.
Real world stories from Connect Kids
I want to share my experience of having Connect kids Maroochydore in mine and my 16yr old sons life for the past 8 months. Me and my son were in the darkest moments of our lives, I was struck by illness and my son was struggling with his mental health.
Connect kids stepped in and me and my son started to see our lives changing straight away from their ongoing support they gave both of us. I felt there was hope again, we were also homeless and they worked relentlessly trying to get us accommodation and the whole time helping my son and me with our health problems.
I have never come across a non funded organisation that went above and beyond to make sure that we were safe and got the support we needed. Gordon and Sonja have changed our lives, they pushed and pushed to get us housing and thanks to them me and my son have a wonderful home now, But it didn’t stop there they managed to furnish the unit and move us in, and now thanks to these wonderful people we are not in need of anything for our home, I will never be able to thank them enough for everything they did for us, they changed our whole life, I never gave up hope and when I did they were there to pep me up again.
I can honestly say I have never come across a non profit organisation as good as Connect Kids Maroochydore, and there help hasn’t stopped yet they are still supporting us where we need it, amazing people!! I recommend these people to anyone who is in need of help, Amazing!!
Thank you Connect Kids
Nicki and Noah
I will never forget what you have done.
