Southern Youth and Family Services (SYFS) is an essential service and is committed to assisting the Young People and their families in the Illawarra, Shoalhaven and Southern Districts of NSW during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Continuation of Services

Our core Services remain operating.  These include:

• Supported Crisis, Medium-term and Transitional accommodation and housing
• Permanency Support/Out of Home Care accommodation and support
• Youth Health including primary health support, one on one health and fitness support

Program Changes

Our family support and early intervention service are continuing and are essential to prevent escalation of many situations at this time. The method of delivery will be flexible and will mainly consist of phone contacts. Face to face contact will only occur where needed.

Other Programs that have significantly changed include the Aboriginal School Student Program, the Parenting Group Programs, the Registered Training Organisation RTO) Groups and group living and social skills and activities have all ceased  and we are delivering more case management, case work support, telephone contact or one on one face to face contact for these services.

Expanded Services

SYFS has expanded some of its Services including food preparation and individual packaging; crisis intervention; material and financial aid; practical assistance; referral and advocacy. We have increased our cleaning, laundry and catering services.

We have also increased social and living skills education on hygiene including hand washing and the provision of practical resources and personal products; provision of information on the COVID-19 virus and recommended behaviours to help reduce the spread; and how to help and be kind to others.

Compliance

In order to comply with social distancing requirements and to ensure the health, safety and well-being of Staff and Clients, SYFS will cintinually monitor service delivery methods and programs. Drop-in services are still operating at the CHAIN Youth Health and Support Services Centre, the Crisis Youth Refuges in Wollongong, Goulburn and Queanbeyan and the Warilla Youth and Family Centre. However, these are more limited. People are assessed individually prior to entry for health and safety and if they have risk factors or symptoms related to the COVID-19 Virus they are referred to the hospital or medical service.

For anyone visiting a SYFS site, we request that you please follow the hygiene procedures as featured on the Australian Government Department of Health website.

How to contact

For more detailed information, please call these Services directly:

• Wollongong Youth Refuge 02 4221 7700
• CHAIN 02 4240 4800
• SYFS Centre, Warilla 02 4295 8700
• Goulburn Youth Refuge 02 4824 6256
• Queanbeyan Youth Refuge 02 6232 9717 

Please be assured we are doing our very best to ensure the safety of our clients and are complying with the Australian and NSW Government recommendations and policies. We continue to review these and update our practice regularly.

We understand the difficulty many of our community members are facing and we will continue to do our utmost to provide support in their time of need. We care deeply about our community and will try and offer support and practical help where we can.