Berry Street Web Docs Annual Report 2013 | Page 10

BERRY STREET ANNUAL REPORT 2013

BERRY STREET CHILDHOOD INSTITUTE

Berry Street
Childhood
Institute
With much excitement, we launched our new Berry Street Childhood
Institute at our Annual Celebration last year. The impetus for the Berry
Street Childhood Institute came from our 2027 Strategic Directions. It
is a tangible example of our strong commitment to doing whatever we
can to ensure all children have a good childhood.

The Berry Street Childhood Institute is about:
JJ Knowledge building – through evaluation of Berry Street services,
collaboration with universities and other research institutes
JJ Knowledge sharing – through speaking tours, forums and publications
and our sponsorship of the 1st Australian Child Aware Conference
JJ Awareness raising – through Marg Hamley acting as an Ambassador
for the Decade for Children, promotion of Board member, David
Green’s, paper on ‘The Conditions of Childhood’ and other partnerships

We are delighted with our first three international Fellows:
JJ D r Bruce Perry – ChildTrauma Academy, USA – Senior Fellow
JJ R ichard Rose – Child Trauma Intervention Services, UK – Fellow
JJ Clark Baim – Psychotherapist, trainer and author, UK – Fellow

Dr Bruce Perry’s Australasian Tour
The Berry Street Childhood Institute brought out the renowned expert
on childhood trauma, Dr Bruce Perry, for a three week tour in August
2012. During this trip, he visited Melbourne, Hobart, Perth, Adelaide,
Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane and New Zealand, presented at 20 events
to over 6,200 people, including 465 Berry Street staff in Melbourne. Dr
Perry has a unique ability to share complex research and connect with
foster carers, as well as Ministers – and everyone in between!

Other international visitors included:
JJ R ichard Rose – in October 2012 and again in June 2013, who
led work on therapeutic care and Life Story work
JJ Clark Baim – in May 2013, who engaged a mix of external and
internal people in attachment based practice, mindful co-working
and advanced supervision
JJ D erek Clark – in September 2013, to talk about growing up
in care at the Victorian Foster Care Conference
JJ D r George Otero – in November 2012, at an education
community of practice which we convened for people interested
in new ways of working with marginalized young people
One of the cornerstones of the Berry Street Childhood Institute is our
commitment to engage young people in all our work. We fund a Youth
Engagement role to lead this work within Berry Street and more broadly.

Innovation and Advocacy
Through our 2027 Strategic Directions, we decided to focus on five key
areas – education, a professionalized foster care system, early years,
leaving care and boys and violence. In each area, we are using our
experience and knowledge to pilot new approaches and develop a
strong case for policy and service design change.

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“Just two more minutes…please!”. “OK, Angie, but you
have already passed today’s stamina goal of 20 minutes
and we need to get to the next lesson. Two more minutes
then….”. This unlikely conversation, between 14 year
old Angie and a teacher at our Berry Street School in
Morwell, typifies our approach, which is building stamina
in children who previously defined themselves as nonreaders. Starting with three minutes with text specifically
tailored to each reader’s independent reading level, we
challenge our students to build their stamina. As well as
feeling good about themselves, we see the spill over to
other areas of life in problem solving, tolerance, ability
to concentrate and emotional self-regulation.

Some of the highlights include:
JJ In education, we are integrating knowledge of the impact
of trauma on young people’s neurodevelopment with
best practice around sciences of wellbeing, strengths
based and positive psychology. All our lesson plans and
classroom activities now incorporate patterned, repetitive
and rhythmic activities which help the students regulate
their behavior and ready their brain for learning.
JJ Developing and advocating nationally for a new model
of support, education and training for foster parents, we
developed ‘I care 2’, a resource for foster parents and a
supervision and support practice guideline
JJ Through support of the Tony Williams Foundation,
developed and piloted a program in Morwell Primary
School, which uses patterned repetitive activities
throughout the day to help children learn. La Trobe
University is evaluating the program
JJ Following a paper we commissioned from Richard Rose
on best practice internationally in breaking the cycle of
family violence, we developed and piloted a groupwork
program for boys who have grown up in families where
family violence is the norm
JJ We are determined that all young people who leave
care have a safe place to live, access to education or
employment and connection to an adult. It is not right
that young people who have experienced profound
trauma and abuse are expected to become independent
when they leave State care at 15, 16 or 17. Legislation
should enshrine support until these young people turn 25.
We researched the best models internationally and have
secured $850,000 from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Fund
and Potter Foundation to pilot a program based on the
UK government’s model of support for care leavers
JJ Instinctive ly we all know the importance of a good
beginning in life. The evidence of the lifelong impact of
early life experience, both good and bad, is overwhelming.
With the great support of a private foundation, we
changed the focus of our ELF program from community
reading days to ELF Play and Learn Groups with the South
Sudanese, Karen and Afghan refugee communities and
another group of vulnerable parents in Gippsland. Through
our bicultural workers, these groups engage mothers and
their pre-school children in intentional child development
activities which respect and build on the language, culture,
traditional play and child rearing practices of refugee
communities. Over 155 families and 206 children meet
weekly in primary schools or maternal and child health
centres in Dandenong, Fitzroy, Morwell and Werribee.
The program is being evaluated by the Murdoch Children’s
Research Institute, but already the enjoyment, learning and
strengthened bond between mother and child are evident.

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