Busselton's homeless youth with no place to go

City of Busselton manager of community services Maxine Palmer said a core group of children, for a variety of reasons, were frequently looking for somewhere to stay at night.

Ms Palmer said unless a child was already identified as an "active case" there were no out of hours services available to young people in Busselton, other than a crisis hotline which the city had supported children to contact.

"The nearest crisis accommodation facilities are in Bunbury," she said.

"Youth homelessness is not a new problem and the City, along with other key stakeholders, have been advocating the State Government for crisis accommodation specifically for youth in Busselton.

"It is understood, the Bunbury facilities are generally booked out and of course it is very difficult for Busselton based youth to access these services - particularly at point of crisis."

Bunyap, a youth crisis accommodation centre in the South-West is run by Accordwest, according to its housing and homelessness team leader Sydwell Madziva.

The centre can accommodate up to six people aged between 15 and 19 years, both male and females, who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, Mr Madziva said.

"While in the Bunyap Program, young people receive intensive support to address some of the issues that would have resulted in them being homeless or being at risk of homeless," he said.

"Young people have individual bedrooms that are all ensuites. The kitchen, laundry and other living spaces are shared.

"One particular bedroom is designed to accommodate a young pregnant mum or a young mum with a baby."

Mr Madziva said as part of the program, young peopled work with a case worker and counsellor and in some instances mentors who were contracted to help the young person achieve their goals.

"The program offers young people the initial needed stability through this accommodation option after difficult, challenging and often traumatic experiences that would have left them homeless or at risk of homeless."

Young people often sought help because of one or a multi-combination of reasons including family breakdown or lack of support, mental health challenges, drug use, trauma, contact with police or the justice system or they were disengaged from school.

Mr Madziva said young people aged 15 years and below 16 years needed guardianship consent to be signed.

He said when a parent or legal guardian was not willing to sign this for young people needing accommodation, such young people were accommodated in consultation with the Department of Communities Child Protection and Family Support.

"Where young people cannot be accommodated due to lack of vacancies in the Bunyap program, they are referred to other support providers like the Re-Connect Program," he said.

"The program offers mediation on behalf of the vulnerable young people and helps formulate a safety plan for the young person to stay with extended family, friends or school mates' families.

"We however, have evidence that the age of young people, homeless and unaccompanied has come down to ages below 10 years. These and up to 14 years cannot be accepted into Bunyap.

"They are referred to Department of Communities Child Protection and Family Support.

"The guardianship laws are a challenge in providing accommodation to the growing cohort of much younger ages of homeless youth and children."

Department of Communities assistant director general Brad Jolly said the latest available data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare indicated that in 2017-18 an estimated 239 people were assisted by specialist homelessness services in Busselton.

Mr Jolly said of these an estimated 84 were under 18 years of age - though this figure included children in the company of parents.

"In the South-West, the Department of Communities contracts Accordwest to provide a six-bed, 24/7 youth crisis accommodation facility located in Bunbury as well as six independent transitional accommodation properties located across Bunbury and Busselton," he said.

"The Department of Communities is currently leading the development of a 10-year strategy on homelessness.

"This is a significant partnership between the State Government and the community services sector to tackle homelessness in WA.

"The strategy is scheduled to be launched later in 2019, with ongoing work needed to implement meaningful and effective reforms - including the examination of the needs of regional centres."

Vasse MLA Libby Mettam has called on the McGowan Government to urgently provide extra resources for child protection after figures showed the number of children at risk in the South-West had dramatically increased.

Ms Mettam said a question on notice she lodged in parliament revealed an alarming number of extra children were being monitored or put in care.

"I had been approached by a local school chaplain with concerns about the growing number of children at risk in the district but I was actually shocked to learn the extent of the issue," she said.

"The number of monitored cases in the South-West district has increased from 26 cases in July 2017 to 85 cases in July 2018.

"The number of mandatory child protection reports has grown from 194 to 227 in the same 12-month period.

"The latest figures also showed that the number of children in care in the South-West has increased from 311 in 2017 to 330 in 2018."

Ms Mettam said the increasing number of children at risk was extremely concerning and believed it be compounded by a lack of Busselton-based resources.

"According to the ABS, the City of Busselton is the largest growth area outside the greater Perth region," she said.

"Yet, the services allocated to the Busselton area are not keeping pace with this growth, with many critical care services still based in Bunbury.

"I have previously raised concerns about the lack of crisis/short-term accommodation in the South West and the referral process for youths at risk and fear the situation across the board will continue to deteriorate unless Busselton-based services are created and funded.

"The McGowan Government's metro-centric approach to services is not focusing on the true areas of need and I have written to the Child Protection Minister seeking urgent resources to address this obviously growing problem."

The minister for child protection Simone McGurk did not respond by time of publication.