What can a $100,000 grant achieve?

Youth Opportunities Update

In May 2017 Youth Opportunities (YO) received $100,000 from Impact100 South Australia to facilitate the delivery of 8 Personal Leadership Programs (PLP) over a 12-month period in South East South Australia, supporting 140 students.

As a reminder, Youth Opportunities provides disengaged and disadvantaged young people across SA with the tools and knowledge to overcome obstacles associated with bullying, low self-esteem, anxiety, family dysfunction, and poor attendance/engagement with school.

The $100,000 Impact100 SA grant assisted YO to successfully deliver nine PLPs during Terms 3 & 4, 2017 and Terms 1 and 2, 2018 to Year 10 students at Mt Gambier High School, Millicent High School and Grant High School across the South East of South Australia.

We can confirm that 140 students have directly benefited from the generous funding of our members, while family, friends, teachers and the wider community have benefited indirectly.

The completion rate of students was 98.7% which is fantastic.

There were significant improvements in the EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Wellbeing across each of the five indicators.  The EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Wellbeing is an internationally used tool that demonstrates reliability and validity and measures five identified constructs that support positive wellbeing in adolescents. The five indicators are engagement, perseverance, optimism, connectedness and happiness.

There were significant improvements in the K10 Kessler Measure of Psychological Distress as it confirmed the exceptional progress in the South East students. The K10 Kessler Measure of Psychological Distress assesses general levels of psychological distress. The K10 items identify experiences of anxiety and depressive symptoms and are a reliable and valid measure used both globally and by the ABS in Australia.

Youth Opportunities and the South East communities would like to thanks Impact100 South Australia members for the much-valued support of the expansion of the program into the South East.

A few quotes include:
From youth Opportunities; “Your seed funding has enabled us to start a positive cultural change in schools and communities, leading to happier, positive and confident young people.”

A teacher from Mount Gambier High School said; “Youth Opportunities has changed our school community. Since the program, our students have become more engaged and are more optimistic about their futures. They are more proactive and have a stronger sense of belonging”.

Click here to read the full report from YO.