Member Profile : Jethro Sercombe – Foyer Project, Anglicare WA
Who are you and what are you doing?
My name is Jethro Sercombe and I am the Manager Foyer Project at Anglicare WA. I’ve been a youth worker for about 10 years, focusing mostly on the needs of homeless young people. My current role at Anglicare WA is to develop the support model for Foyer Oxford – a new service for young people experiencing homelessness that provides high quality housing, holistic support and access to education and training. Based on a successful UK model, Foyer Oxford will be Australia’s first purpose built ‘Foyer’ and will house 98 young people in self contained apartments onsite at the Central Institute of Technology campus in Leederville.
What do you want to get from this community?
We want to build a 21st Century service for young people, and we think this requires additional networks to the ones that not for profits have traditionally engaged. There are some real possibilities for new ways of doing things with this client group and we are interested at looking at ways that technology and enterprise might impact the work we do. (Also i need somewhere quiet to get some work done!)
What can you give this community?
Foyer has strong connections to the not for profit sector as well as housing and education. I suppose our greatest strength is the relationships our workers have with really hard to reach client groups.
Why did you start your project / organisation?
There has always been a significant shortage of long term supported housing for young people, with about 6000 young people homeless in WA on any one night. Even when young people in these situations work hard to overcome barriers, long term welfare dependency is a reality for many. Foyer Oxford takes seriously the idea that the only long term avenue out of homelessness is through education and work, so combines those elements. We hope to develop a program that does more than get young people ‘stable’ – we want a service that inspires them to thrive.
What is your passion?
I have a passion for social justice and feel like my role in that is to focus on developing services for young people that are high quality, and really work, where we can track whether anyone is actually better off. I think this takes finding ways to work that treat young people’s ways of being with respect and connect with them in ways that make sense (and that have a good dose of fun in the mix).
How do people contact you?
jethro.sercombe@anglicarewa.org.au or my private (not work) twitter account @jethrosercombe
Where can we see your work in action?
www.anglicarewa.org.au is Anglicare WA’s website
www.oxfordfoyer.com.au is the community information site for Foyer Oxford – soon to be redeveloped.