Queensland Youth Housing Coalition Blast

Networks Description

Queensland Youth Housing Coalition (QYHC) is committed to improving the life opportunities and the wellbeing of young people who have been impacted by homelessness and the multitude of associated issues such as education, health, safety and social connection.

QYHC’s community engagement is through a range of processes that pivot around processes in relation to data, research, High Impact Projects and events.  uBegin is a collaborative digital platform which QYHC utilises to engage with a broad range of organisations and individuals in its network. The platform facilitates collaboration on HIP which supports QYHC in organising multiple partners to work together on joint initiatives.

The digital nature of the tool promotes involvement of a range of stakeholders including young people, urban, metro and rural and regional stakeholders in the network. uBegin is an online ecosystem specifically designed to cultivate meaningful opportunities and communication for both place-based and systemic strategies to succeed.  The high impact issues and projects highlighted in the opportunity mapping, are driven by local level intelligence that includes the voices of young people, research, data and evidence. It is aligned to, and complements, the Department of Housing and Public Works Queensland Homelessness Compact.

uBegin also maps our contribution to the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), an international and multi-stakeholder effort to focus policy, innovation and resource allocation to move beyond some of our most significant challenges.

uBegin value adds to the engagement process as it focussed on, and nurtures, local champions and is aligned to the ABS statistical area 4 or SA4 as they are more commonly referred to (Outback Queensland, Cairns, Townsville, Mackay-Isaac-Whitsunday, Central Queensland, Wide Bay, Darling Downs – Maranoa, Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Moreton, Ipswich, Brisbane, Logan and Gold Coast).  The focus of the champion is to promote engagement in the collaborative process and ensure that knowledge is shared.  Having local champions fosters leadership in the youth homelessness sector, and the creation of connections across the State.  The champions are key individuals from around the State who are already active in their networks, know what is going on in their region, and can link organisations and key people to QYHC.

There are 6 monthly network champion Zoom meetings to connect and keep people in the loop around what is happening in terms of projects around the State.  All High Impact Projects will be on the QYHC collaborative digital platform and offered an opportunity to showcase at the annual Platform 1225 Forum as part of the “show, tell and highlight” so that there can be shared learnings across the State.

A full copy of the QYHC Youth Housing Framework can be found at https://www.qyhc.org.au/about/