Australian Foyer Foundation Conference, 2017

 (showing the Australian Foyer movement some love)

When you are a restless traveller, people and places recede in time only to welcome you home again.  

I went back to Australia this October to join the Foyer Foundation’s annual conference.  It was a chance to complete the ‘journey’ of their first accreditation cohort - a group of pioneering Foyers, from Melbourne to Perth, successfully completing the pilot of the FOR Youth accreditation framework. The trip felt heavy in the heart from the death of Jane the week before, someone who worked tirelessly for Australia to put Accreditation in its DNA.  What a legacy those first young people left, who asked the Federation to develop an accreditation system in late 90s.

Before I got to the beautiful conference setting at Coogee beach, I headed to Adelaide, to Cairns, to the suburbs of Sydney, offering my expertise on asset-based approaches to practitioners in different training workshops – from youth organisations to those working with dementia care and domestic violence.  Questions ranged from how to embed asset-thinking across organisational practice, to how to sustain approaches in compliance based settings, to how to distinguish between the ‘intent’ to be ‘advantaged thinking’, and the actuality and outcomes achieved. I shared the ‘Assetspots’ framework, developed for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Youth Fund, offering people a powerful starting point to engage discussion and develop deeper insights.  That, and the best advice I learned over the years: never stop building a dream team; and get yourselves a very good bullshit detector.

The conference was excellent – a large diverse audience including funders and commissioners with practitioners old and new. Presentations ranged from looking at a new Foyer for young people from care backgrounds being funded through a social impact bond, to impact and evaluation approaches, and the role of educational institutions. Throughout the conference, the voice of young people was heard through a series of videos reflecting on what they liked about their different Foyers, and a final live panel telling powerful stories of transition, complete with a memorable rap performance.  As so often with young people from Foyers, you are reminded of their appreciation for opportunities, for the importance of accessible support, and for the alternative family that communal living can offer. 

My main contribution at the conference was a keynote address reflecting on the Australian accreditation journey, framed between a question I was asked recently from a young person at Ravenhead Foyer – 'is it true kangeroos can punch you in the face?' – along with a memory of the powerful ‘synergy’ that Jane brought in her work.  The opportunity, each day, and in each conference room, is for everyone to harness collective talents and potential.

Looking at how Australian Foyers continue to grow a strong deal for young people, I think there is a powerful synergy across the ocean the UK could learn from too. Jane would have loved that. 

If you would like to find out more about my work, drop me a line at hello@inspirechilli.com