First things first. My community project idea, after researching into youth and drug abuse organizations i find myself caught up in thinking of ways to better the organizations i researched.

So firstly i narrowed my topic down to drugs and found that this was a too broad subject for such a project. And landed on one illicit drug, ECSTASY.

From witnessing the effects of ecstasy i want to answer the question. What possesses my age group to do illicit drugs? Society doesn’t understand the full reasons and actions behind these young drug users from their perspectives. I’ve witnessed my friends use ecstasy and watch their personalities and mental health change. The reasons they told me for taking ecstasy were things like pure entertainment purposes, it’s a fun adrenaline rush, the illegal part behind it brings that bad cool side to life and in the end it was ‘something to do.’ I was different i did’nt succumb to the peer pressure, even though i did smoke among my same line of friends.

To sum it up in a Vision Statement, the project would contain information about the young generation’s motives for using ecstasy.

I have to also remember that my project remains neutral on the topic of drug use, the project will neither promote or demote drug using. The main purpose of this project is to help today’s society understand young ecstasy using. My aim is that society will not generically make an opinion about young drug users without understanding how these young individual’s perspective.

Deciding to follow down a different road in his young life straying away from loud music and drugs, George applied for a job at a non-profit organization. Where he was stationed at foster care homes. George felt it as though it has always been his calling to help people who can’t help themselves, he learnt about young kids and their addiction drugs and sexual abuse. As his knowledge on the subject grew from experience, he was requested to volunteer at local high schools and inform students about drugs and sex. George would walk into a classroom and introduce himself as George and tell the class he was here to talk about sex and drugs. They could ask him anything about the subject and he would answer them.

Besides from gaining knowledge George has withstood abuse from young adolescents struggling from drug addiction who have in cases shown violent behaviour. With such a tough and demanding job George has still managed to stay with his partner Irene. George still says the best part of his job is that he has managed to help somebody out there even if it is only a small amount over a decade, it still pleases him to hear that he’s made a difference.

LENGTHY DETAILED VERSION:
George Middleton was one of two young boys of a family of five children. In the middle of his kindergarten year his whole family went backpacking around Europe where they stayed at hostiles.

George’s father was a doctor and his mother was a psychologist, both were well known professionals in their fields. They separated when George was in High School, his mother announced she was a lesbian. George’s Father remarried and didn’t want anything to do with his past Wife or her family. George’s Mother later died of cancer, when George was in his mid 20s.
After his parents separated George moved out with his older brother Ian and rented a house, where he lived until he finished High School. George worked at a Pub with a close friend from high school to make the rent.

After High School George applied for a job at a non-profit organization, he was stationed at halfway house for adolescents aged between 16 and 25. He did grueling 6 hour rotating shifts, with only a staff of 3. George ended up getting the job only for mentioning his parent’s occupation at the interview.
George moved to Melbourne where he became a roadie for some well-known rock bands. As a roadie, he abused drugs and alcohol for a good few years, and got caught up in the rock and roll life. George slowly began to lose hearing from the constant loud music. His father gave him a hearing test. Where his father advised him to stop working as a roadie or he would lose his hearing completely.

George kept working at halfway homes for a while George felt it has always been his calling to help people who can’t help themselves, he learnt about young kids and their addiction drugs and sexual abuse. He showed particular empathy for young males who were used in prostitution and picked up STDs.

From his wide knowledge of substance abuse and sexual abuse at the age of 30 he was requested to volunteer at local high schools and inform students about drugs and sex. George would walk into a class room and introduce himself as George and tell the class he was here to talk about sex and drugs and that they could ask him anything about the subject and he would answer them. Even at Catholic Schools where teachers were upset about him speaking so openly. Eventually he became highly regarded and was continually asked back to speak to more students for his honesty and knowledge of drugs, alcohol and sex.

With such a tough and demanding job George has still managed over 15 years to stay with his partner Irene.

Now at the age 45 George has worked with many organizations and has lectured for drug and alcohol abuse for the Essendon AFL team, Melbourne Storm and most recently Melbourne Train drivers. George will leave to England in a month for a conference on drug and alcohol abuse where he will be one of the main speakers.

ysas-annual-report-2002.pdf

Reach Out! Annual Reports

2003

2004

2006

2007

I liked the idea and i knew i would get some sort of idea of who supports and donates a youth service. But thinking about Kimberley’s assignment I really need to know who supports ReachOut, not gather my information from another service.

I was reminded by what Lisa from ReachOut said to me that most of their ‘supporters’ are the people on their online community. These people are actually seeking help and becoming supporters because they ask for help as well as offer help to others making this a really well-established wonderful community.

I’ve been on online forums and most of them have a member list, a list of everyone registered to the forums and their profile information. So I thought i’d register myself on to the ReachOut Online Community and have a look

I also thought gold mine this will give me a slight bit of Demographic/Geographic information for this assignment that i need that ReachOut didn’t apparently keep.

But just as i got my hopes up i found that the members list on ReachOut’s Forum was blocked. And for some gay motherfucking reason i couldn’t access any of it. So i tried actually clicking on a member to see their profile i was also blocked out from that as well, it was fucking frustrating, ss you can understand from my language.

I realised when I read posts below each members name there was brief profile that was shown. So therefore i had to go through the whole forum and sort of keep a tally or just a recollection of what i was reading.

Example of Brief Profile:

Group: ya
Posts: 4,958
Joined: 16-June 06
From: Canberra
Member No.: 14,537
State: ACT
Postcode: 2600
Age: 18
Gender: female

I scoped all over the forums reading almost every section, thread to gather the information i was seeking. I found myself reading the posts and what they were about I found myself really depressed after it and thought maybe i should post seek help as well. Eventually it drove me fucking insane and couldn’t stand these 16 year old girls and their problems. I began to focus more of my time on profile part. And this is what i gathered:

• More Females than males ranging from an age of 16-24 just as ReachOut intends on targeting.
• Majority of the females posting on the forum were probably 15 to 16 years old.
• When it came to males, the select few of them that i came across most of them were 20+ in age i think i found one 15 year old.
• The online community were from all around Australia (WA, NSW, etc.)
• Some members tended not to show their age or location

The Youth Substance Abuse Service (YSAS) was established in 1997 in response to the need for accessible, effective and engaging alcohol and drug interventions for young people between the ages of 12 – 21 who are experiencing significant problems with their alcohol and/or drug use.

“to continually develop leading responses to young people who engage in problematic substance use.”- YSAS mission statement

Steven Wilson

Steven Wilson or Steve as he likes to be called, has been a close friend of my father since he was 16. Steve is a social worker for YSAS, the Youth Substance Abuse Service. Steve has worked for various other Youth-related organisations in the past some of which had only a staff of 5. YSAS is the biggest organisation Steve has worked at with a staff of 140.

YSAS provides a range of youth-specific outreach, treatment, withdrawal, rehabilitation and support programs in a number of locations in Melbourne and regional Victoria. Steve’s role at YSAS is in the ‘educational research’ program, the way he explained it he trains people to help young people on drugs. He works with a lot of todays young role models for example hes been training with the Melbourne Storms on Saturdays helping them with alcohol and drug related problems they might have as well as educating them on as how to act as role models to younger generation. Steve also teaches the community about why young people are taking drugs. Most common thing parents say about the reason their children are taking drugs is because it’s seemed as ‘bad’ and they want to be seen as ‘bad’ because bad is cool. I laughed when i heard this, because this is complete bullshit. Steve agreed with me and said that kids these days arent taking ecstacy – he used this as example – to be bad but for their own reasons, some of them being the fact that it allows them to dance all night long nightclubs others do it for a adrenaline rush.

He also went indepth on how each program works, this gave me an insight on how YSAS is different from other organisations. From my notes he only mentioned a select few of the programs.

• Youth drug and alcohol outreach – YSAS staff out on the street approaching young people and helping them understand drugs and getting knowledge why the youth of today are taking drugs
• Youth Withdrawal Services – a 10 day treatment where YSAS helps young people suffering from withdrawal of drugs ( e.g. Heroine) by giving them support at their homes.
• Day programs - YSAS organises a drug service for a day, targeting young people hosting them at youth centers.
• Youth supported accommodation - YSAS helps young people who are homeless and are drug abusers and offer them accommodation and support for drug abuse.

Steve at a young age joined a rock band. Back in his days a teenager everybody was taking drugs and know one was informed about the severe things drugs and alcohol had on your life. He straightened his life out quickly and decided he wanted to help others. Most of the YSAS have their reasons some personal, others not.

I asked steve the question why do you think people work at Youth Services what entices them to do become a part of helping the young generation?

Steve answered: They feel that helping young people is just important and that the younger generation is going to be the next generation so they need to be guided. He also said that Social Justice is a common thing – they feel that all people should be treated in society with respect, wether they are young, old, rich or poor they should all be given equal treatment.

When it came to getting information about supporters and donaters, Steve explained to me it would be hard for me to get firstly even get that sort of information from any organisation as they feel as though as it is breaching confidentiality. Also most Youth services don’t keep this sort of information especially Demographic data. YSAS RARELY recieves donations, being around for 10 years he said that only around 3 donations were given and the amount of money that was donated was around $500. He said the reason for YSAS not needing donations is that every few years the YSAS is given a Government Grant of around 8 million dollars.

I explained to Steve I really needed to know about the supporters/donaters and had already had a similar problem with ReachOut. Steve tried to help me as much as he could, I decided to read him a few responses of the Why People Give Fact Sheet Kimberley gave us and asked Steve from his personal experience would he say these are some of the reasons why people would donate/support to a Youth Service, especially if YSAS asked for donations.

He answered them to the best of his ability giving me a sort of rank from 1-5 what was most common to the least common from the responses.

1. Personal passion – enthusiasm and commitment to a particular cause
   
2. Personal connections (giving to a cause which has affected them or their family, eg cancer)
   
3. Desire to make a difference – to make the world a better place and make other people’s lives better
   
4. Altruism – because they recognise that its the right thing to do
   
5. A sense of duty or obligation

Steve said that YSAS has started fundraising and it only happened this year exactly three weeks ago as a matter of fact. RockWiz a television show on SBS, helped raise money for YSAS for one particular episode of their show.

Tickets were $65, tables of 10, a result of rougly 600 people attending. $10,000 was raised for YSAS.

Majority of the people attending the show were fans of RockWiz, but there were another audience there aswell who were showing support to YSAS. Steve said that most of the YSAS staff attended bringing along friends and partners. Steve was aware that a Real Estate Agency had 3 tables, this was result from personal/bussiness networking from the YSAS Staff or even word of mouth.

The reason YSAS decided to host a fund raiser was that it was YSAS’s 10 year anniversary. The fund raiser was so successful that it will now happen every year.

[Seventy-five per cent of mental illness begins before 25 years of age, with one in five young people (children and adolescents) diagnosed with a mental health problem. Yet, Australian data indicate that only 29% of those affected contact a professional service of any type. Given the poor prognosis for adolescents and adults with untreated psychiatric symptoms, these low rates of access and treatment are particularly disturbing.

The Internet is increasingly becoming a support of choice for young people, with research demonstrating that young people actively seek health information and referrals through the Internet and online discussion groups, including accessing sensitive information on AIDS, birth control and mental health issues.]

The journal is would be useful for Lissa’s Case Studies as it gives specific statistics on internet use and answers questions like ‘Why use the Internet as a tool for service delivery to young people?’

I found this related article on the Inspire Foundation website

Internet role in youth mental health endorsed- Inspire Foundation Website

[Pacific Fair’s Discover a Supermodel Search, recognises that there is more to a successful career on the catwalk, or even workplace than a pretty face.

Supporting the premise that beauty and confidence runs more than skin deep; this unique event differs from many other model searches as it also helps to develop the inner confidence, motivation and self-esteem of its participants.

...This year Pacific Fair’s model search will raise money for ReachOut, with all funds from registration fees going directly towards the charity so that the participants can help other young people, whilst having fun and learning more about themselves.]

This article is a good insight in the social impact ReachOut aims to have as a service. Their main purpose in this Charity event is to target young females helping them develop their ‘inner confidence, motivation and self-esteem’ as well offering them to have fun and learn more about themselves.

[T-shirts in Jay Jays’ ‘little loser’ range are branded with tasteful messages like ‘Miss Bitch,’ ‘Mr Well Hung,’ ‘Ms Wasted’ and ‘Mr Pimp’, with pictures that mimic a children’s book series.

What hasn’t yet been reported is the self-evident clash in values between Jay Jays’ ‘little losers’ and the organisation it sponsors, ReachOut , which provides a help line and website to help kids and young teens dealing with issues such as mental health and body image issues, s-x, drugs, alcohol and abuse.

Alongside the online catalogue displaying the ‘little loser’ clothes and accessories, the Jay Jays website has a special section dedicated to ReachOut, noting that “Jay Jays has joined forces with ReachOut to bring you info and tips on feeling good about life and staying positive.” Just how a t-shirt called ‘Miss Floozy’ promotes this message is something only a spinner could tell us. Though even they would have their work cut out for them with slogans like “If I’m not wasted, the day is” and “Party ‘til you puke”. It’s almost as if Jay Jays have taken every one of ReachOut’s values and twisted them.

When Crikey contacted ReachOut about the ‘little loser’ range, spokesman Bruce Walmsley said that although the organisation “does not endorse the messages on the ‘little losers’ branded range of tee-shirts … we’ve been very happy with the response from Jay Jays to our concerns.” When asked to define what this “response” was, ReachOut declined to answer.]

I found this article really interesting, as i have seen the shirts myself and think their funny. But as a target to the young generation Jay Jays are innocently just following a trend and i believe had no intention to contradict with their support to ReachOut. The way ReachOut went by sorting this mess out as service seems very wrong the fact they don’t “endorse the messages on the ‘little losers’ branded range of tee-shirts” isn’t really showing that they stand by their purpose as a Youth Service.