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Testimonials

Since the closure of ACYS's services on 30 June was announced following the 2023 Federal Budget, we have been overwhelmed with comments and letters of concern, support and thoughts about what impacts the closure will have for you, your work and the young people you work with. Thank you for taking time to tell us.

Due to the sheer volume, we can't share what everyone's said, but we wanted to share some of those impacts with you here.

You can still let us know what impacts closing ACYS will have for you, your work and/or the young people you work with, either here or by emailing [email protected]

Without the valuable information and resources produced by ACYS, communities will miss out on vital information, experience, and learnings to assist them to face this challenge.

 

Without ACYS, YNOT and other organisations who support young people in Tasmania will not have access to this vital research and information to ensure that young people can have the support they require.

 

As a small, independent regional based service, 700km away from Adelaide, the ability to connect with the sector through the resources and social media content delivered via ACYS has been invaluable. It also ensures that we can…utilis[e] best practice approaches, which in turn provides consistency of service for our young people…Without the ability to access ACYS, small organisations such as ours will find it increasingly difficult to continue to deliver…grass roots, localised responses, best practice programs…and support our Youth Workers in regard to Professional Development who do not live in capital cities.

 

The impact will not just be felt by researchers and practitioners, but also young people in how their issues and challenges are portrayed.   

ACYS has understood the need to actively bring marginalised youth issues into the mainstream.  The dismantling of ACYS will contribute to the fragmentation of youth issues nationally.  

 

I use your roundups all the time for info to present to parents and the teens I work with.

 

We have utilised ACYS’s …research and information… to inform practice and to support the development of organisational policy. It is always difficult, if not impossible, to obtain this information elsewhere.

 

I find the youth sector very fractured across Australia, and the ACYS website was a fabulous place to go to find everything all in one place…I used these resources extensively in my teaching, and also referred students to them as a primary portal for information. It will be a great loss to lose these irreplaceable resources.

 

 

The risk is that people working in the sector will become increasingly isolated from current thinking, best practice and peer support in a challenging and ever changing field.

 

When we lose ACYS we lose a wealth of knowledge & resources that even the Government couldn't put a price tag on

 

'With the closure of ACYS, Youth Wellbeing Project will no longer be able to reach a whole sector of people who benefit from being informed about our work. We will also be left in the dark about what else is happening in the youth sector, including new research and vital initiatives for young people.'

 

'ACYS provides an outstanding service that should be supported. It is the to-go organisation for youth related resources and research and unique in its scope and breadth. We will be impacted by ACYS closing as it is an essential information source for our organisation.'

 

'The needs of young people are different to that of adults or mainstream society. Research hubs such as ACYS are essential to ensuring positive growth and development of our future children and young people.'

 

'A loss of a sense of voice for the youth sector, a loss of our ability to know what it is that youth workers do, to know what are the key issues impacting on young people, a loss of a forum to share critical information about young people in Australia. Lost opportunities to share good practice.'
 

 

'The loss of the resources p'rovided by ACYS will severely hamper the work we do training youth workers and other community services workers.  We rely on your service to direct our attention to current research and resources.  We will not be able to replicate this work with our current resources, and the simple outcome will be less current and hence effective teaching.'
 

 

'Lack of information and research to provide best practice for working with young people.'