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We have been re-accredited!

ASES Accreditation for The Burdekin Association

One of the biggest achievements this year for The Burdekin Association has been the renewed accreditation of our services through the Australian Services Excellence Standards, a process which takes place every three years. All NSW Specialist Homelessness Service providers are required to be accredited as of June 30, 2024.

Specialist Homelessness Services

We were one of the first Specialist Homelessness Service providers to achieve accreditation in 2020 and have since achieved re-accreditation in 2023 with an enhanced rating compared to the previous occasion.

Our staff did an amazing job implementing the recommendations from the last accreditation and through continuously improving our processes and procedures.

Of the 25 ASES categories, 100 per cent were achieved.

The growth and development of Burdekin has been substantial and the systems and culture of the organisation has continued to evolve over that time. This growth and development are reflected in an excellent result in our accreditation assessment.

Staff at Burdekin assisted with the ASES Accreditation
Staff at Burdekin greatly assisted with the ASES Accreditation process.

Many of the improvements that were suggested by the Assessor consolidate the work that we have undertaken already and will help refine our systems, so as to sustain our current services and provide succession planning across all levels of Burdekin.

Strengths of Burdekin

The strengths of Burdekin that were highlighted in the ASES Assessment Report, include:

  • Our vision and values are consistent across all levels
  • We have a committed and stable Board, with an excellent skills mix
  • We have a strong Leadership Group, with clear roles and good collaboration
  • We have a culture of respect and belonging
  • There is recognition and valuing of staff
  • Organisational values are embedded in our HR systems and practice
  • Burdekin is a respected and trusted provider by clients, stakeholders and communities
  • Burdekin is agile and flexible to meet young people’s needs
  • Burdekin is committed to evaluation, standards and best-practice models, research and evidence-based practice to achieve positive client outcomes
  • We provide flexible work practices for staff
  • We are committed to intersectoral collaboration

To achieve this accreditation rating, The Burdekin Association needed a great team of people, and we have an amazing cohort of dedicated, creative, friendly, kind and like-minded individuals. Congratulations Team Burdekin!

Demand for our services continues to grow

Youth Homelessness and Family Support Services

The Burdekin Association exists to support young people towards a better-quality life. Many of us have found ourselves in this job because we love the idea of helping others and advocating for our most vulnerable people in society. We have a huge amount of job satisfaction – we get to help children and young people have a better life but it is a tough job at times too.

Our workload is high as we strive to meet our continued growth but we are highly motivated. We do not want to let one single young person down; young people come to us and have often been let down multiple times prior to finding us. We continue to run our organisation well and operate within our means. However, the increase in demand for our services means an increase in costs with no associated change in revenue. The solution is simple, we require increased funding and are constantly fundraising. Our CEO, Justene recently took to Facebook to say this.

It’s been both an inspiring yet exhausting last few years. We provide homes for children and young people all over the eastern Sydney region from Avalon in the North to Ramsgate in the South. In the space of 4 years we now care for 10 times or 1000% more children and young people. We don’t want to increase however whilst their are children and young people who need a safe home we will strive to ensure that everyone of them has one.

We want to make sure everyone of these children and young people have access to the same opportunities as there peers. We are now struggling to do this.

Our fundraising/philanthropic and donations that we receive go straight back into ensuring our children and young people have the absolute best and extra care we can possibly provide as well as holidays, access to our bespoke education program, mental health support, formal dresses/tickets, soccer shoes, sports fees, gym fees, apprenticeship tools, driving lessons…everything and anything that they need (balanced with what they want!). With our growth we need more funds to give all our children and young people all that they deserve.

What can you do…I would love it if you could run your own one off or yearly third party fundraiser at work, in the community, your family, your school or club. I will run (well walk), swim (slowly), dance and do pretty much anything I can to assist in your efforts.

If you are interested in running an event for us please reach out. Thank you for any support you can provide. Justene CEO.

Your help, small or large, is immensely appreciated and vital to our continued success. There are many ways in which you can support us. One opportunity is sleeping over at Freshwater on Friday March 17th for Home Sweet 2023 or sponsoring our team to sleepover. Grab your comfy gear, friends, family or colleagues and come and join us for a fun, community event to raise much needed funds and awareness for homelessness.

Our pages: Get involved, Community Fundraising and Support Us, all have information on practical ways that you can support our work.

As part of our commitment to continuous improvement we are in the process of collating data from our surveys of our young people and employees. This will enable us to see what we are doing right and what we need to improve. We look forward to sharing this information with you soon.

View Our AGM 2022

We recently held our 2022 AGM and below you will find a record of the meeting. Once again our AGM was held as a virtual meeting allowing attendees to join us from anywhere.

The MC for the meeting was Anna, one of our young people who some of you might remember from the Inner West launch event! Anna is currently residing in staffed housing with Burdekin and transitioning to semi-independent living, she is also graduating from year 12 and currently in the middle of HSC!

We also were lucky to welcome Casey Munro, First Nations Case Manager and Cultural Liaison Consultant at Burdekin as our guest speaker for the event.

Please have a listen to the proceedings, we welcome any questions or feedback that you may have and you can forward your comments to burdekin.admin@burdekin.org.au.

You can also view our Annual Report here.

Our Shared Future

Our Shared Future guides our work addressing child and youth homelessness as well as the contributing factors to it. Our goal is to provide hope and opportunities to vulnerable children and young people in our community through the power of our people and partnerships.

Our Vision is a thriving youth population where all young people have opportunities to live life to their full potential. A society which recognises the interdependence of people in our community and the importance of looking after each other – especially those who are unable to look after themselves – our young people.

Together

Our Shared Journey – a journey beginning at Granma’s crisis youth refuge in 1980, developing through to the year 2000 and transforming into the organisation we are today.

Together with our supporters we wish to inspire HOPE for young lives and shape a future world for the young people who will inherit it. We are stronger, better and more capable together. Share the HOPE #brdknhope with us.

Our Purpose is to inspire HOPE

Put simply, we exist to inspire young people to believe their lives can be enriched by experience and empowered by hope. We believe every young person has the right to a life that offers opportunities to fulfil their potential.

Our Shared Future is the result of consultations with staff, volunteers and partners about how we do things, how we can do better, who we are and what we stand for. Our Shared Future includes our Vision, Values, Purpose and Priorities. We have created a story map, check it out! We hope you like it.

We acknowledge the Aboriginal people of the Cadigal and Gayamaygal Clans. We acknowledge the Country on which we live, work, and gather as being Aboriginal land.

We acknowledge the lands, waterways and skies that are connected to Aboriginal people. We honour them and pay our deepest respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

We respect their rightful place within our communities, and we value their ancient cultural knowledge and practices.

Aboriginal Flag
Torres Straight Island Flag

We deeply respect that this will always be Aboriginal land and we will honour and follow the first peoples’ values in caring for the Country and for preserving their culture.

We deeply value that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the oldest living culture in the world and we will continue to work with their peoples and communities to ensure their cultures endure and remain strong.