Volunteer program helping children in care reaches new highs

An all-important volunteer program that provides vital support to children and young people engaged with the child protection and family support system has grown and is showing promising signs of further increases through a targeted recruitment campaign by the Malinauskas Government.

As of July, volunteers in the program are at 207, a marked and significant increase of 15% since April. The program sees volunteers spend 29,000 hours each year providing support to children and young people in care.

The targeted recruitment campaign has seen the Department of Child Protection reach out to potential volunteers through career expo promotion and sharing volunteers’ stories via social media and other channels. Volunteers come from a diverse range of life experiences and are aged from 18 all the way to 88. This brings both valuable youth and experience to the volunteer program.

Volunteers help create a safe and nurturing environment where children and young people can grow and thrive and provide additional support to child protection and family support workers and carers, allowing them to focus on other aspects of support needed by children engaged with the system.

Volunteers help in a range of ways including transporting children to school or sporting and other activities, helping with homework, supporting young people as they learn to drive and supporting children at special events.

This is a cause particularly close to volunteer Dylan Strudwick’s heart. The 31-year-old spent about a decade in foster, kinship and residential care, and has long considered and engaged in ways to give back to the sector that helped keep him safe and develop as a youngster.

Dylan is helping create safe and supportive environments for children through his volunteer role in addition to his job as an individual support worker, supporting people with disabilities.

Dylan says during his time in care, his “lights” included some of the staff supporting him, along with his foster carer who helped him through difficult times – the pair remaining close to this day. He decided to volunteer to be a “light” for someone else.

While his main role is transporting children, he says one of his most rewarding assignments was working with a carer to set up a backyard trampoline for two foster siblings.

To find out more about volunteering and helping children and young people in care, visit childprotection.sa.gov.au/volunteers

Quotes

Attributable to Katrine Hildyard

Child protection and family support is a whole of community responsibility, with a role for everyone to play in supporting children and young people to feel safe, loved and nurtured and to know they are not alone.

Our incredible volunteers show extraordinary support and compassion in their efforts, and I’m so thankful to people like Dylan for giving our South Australian children their time, patience, encouragement and care. Dylan exemplifies what it means to be a ‘light’ for the children who most need us.

The Government is always looking for more volunteers to help children and young people who have gone through some extremely tough circumstances.

If you think you may be able to help, please reach out to the department – I’ve heard several volunteers say it’s one of the most rewarding things they’ve ever done.

Attributable to Department for Child Protection volunteer Dylan Strudwick

I wanted to give back to the DCP community – to all the people who helped me and improved my quality of life.

It feels like I’m on the way to helping the people who have helped me in the past.

When I was going through foster care, I felt so scared and alone, but there were people who made me know that I wasn’t alone; I had a voice and I could ask questions, and there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

I wanted to be a light for someone else – to give someone a bit of hope.