Our values are: respect, equality, self-determination, inclusivity, compassion and social justice.
About us
Our Team
Open Door is staffed by our two highly skilled Caseworkers Michelle and Jo and by our Manager, Lynn. Together we have 70+ years experience working in the youth homelessness space. The depth of knowledge, commitment and maturity on our team, enables us to deliver a uniquely high standard of Trauma Informed Care.
Our Staff can provide generalist counselling and are qualified in non-clinical mental health support, within the Trauma Informed Care framework. We also provide NSW Residential Tenancy support, advocacy and advice to our clients.
We’re a diverse workforce, with different backgrounds and viewpoints. We’re united by our common goal of doing the very best we can for the young people who knock on our door, to make sure they receive the care and support they deserve.
Growing our skills base, remaining current with best practice and working together with our local partners and networks serves to underline our team’s commitment to continuous quality improvement.
Our Client Charter
You have Rights and Responsibilities when you use our Service. Download Client Charter
Privacy and Confidentiality'Your privacy and personal details are protected when you use our Service.
Download Personal Information Policy
Feedback Complaints or Suggestions.
You have the right to give your feedback, make a complaint or offer your suggestions about how the Service should be run.
We will take your feedback, complaint or suggestions, seriously and we will reply to you within a reasonable time.
Your Caseworker, or the Manager, will give you more information and options about how you can do this.
You also have the right to ask a trusted person to help you to do this.
Download Service Users Complaints.
Our Programs
Specialised Trauma Informed Care Case Management is delivered within our comprehensive Living Skills Program. Our team provides individually tailored Support Plans to reflect each young person’s unique support needs. We work collaboratively with young people and their mental health, CALD, First Nations, LGBTIA+, housing and other specialist professionals to establish and build their individual support networks.
Sustainable Tenancy Support Program may be delivered in conjunction with Case Management, to ensure that young people understand their rights and responsibilities as tenants. We have a strong focus on developing the essential interpersonal skills that young people need to successfully share with their co-tenants in any setting, including private rental, transitional accommodation or with family and friends. This support is delivered using our own resource, Share It. See Share It, below.
SHARE IT
We have developed our own tenancy tool, Share It, to tackle the inevitable issues that arise when sharing with a co-tenant! This step by step tool aims to pre-empt disagreements and provides practical steps for tenants to create their own, individual co-tenants agreement.
The Share It process can enable young people to learn negotiation and compromise, build confidence and self esteem and develop the necessary interpersonal skills for them to enjoy independent, successful co-tenancies.
Share It is designed to work as a stand alone resource. We can also use Share It in conjunction with Rent It Keep It. Rent It Keep It is a useful tool from Housing NSW, that teaches the practicalities of setting up a tenancy.
So with Rent It Keep It and Share It we have stand alone or complementary resources.
While originally designed for use by SHS support workers, Share It provides a flexible, framework, so that anyone at all can use it to create their own personalised agreements between co-tenants.
Our Service provides presentations of Share It to other support services, such as Head Space, just for example. Talk to us about Share It and we can work together to meet your particular requirements.
Contact Open Door for more information.
Our Board
Our Service is governed by an active, dedicated Board of volunteer members who have experience in the community and private sectors; St. George and Sutherland Mental Health, Employment Services, the Gender Centre, NSW Education Department, Community Legal Aid Services, Community Housing, and Business.
The Board has taken care to recruit a considered balance of both long standing and new Members. This ensures the Service benefits from stable, well seasoned governance together with the influx of new skills and invigorating, fresh ideas.
The Staff team is well supported by practical, collaborative Board engagement.
Looking forward, the Board is focussed on the continued good governance of the Service, the work towards ASES accreditation over the next three years and the development of some exciting, ground breaking projects within our St. George and Sutherland community.
Our funding
We are a Specialist Housing Service - SHS - funded by the Department of Communities and Justice - DCJ - NSW.
We thank and acknowledge DCJ.
Make a donation
If you would like to change the life of a young person, you can make a donation to Open Door to support our work.
Email the service manager on manager@opendooryouthhousing.org.
“Celebrating 40 years, supporting young people in St George and Sutherland.”
Our story
Since 1983 Open Door Youth Housing Support Service - formerly known as St. George Accommodation for Youth Limited, has had a proud history of delivering support to young people in the St. George and Sutherland areas. Over the four decades since opening, we have worked with young people who have not had the advantages that many of their peers enjoy. Over four decades, we have seen many changes in our client group, reflecting the broader community we work within.
As one of the earliest transitional accommodation services in NSW, we began work with young people from predominantly Australian backgrounds, from the lower socio economic strata of society. At that time, homelessness was regarded primarily as an economic issue. Young people using our Service were usually referred from our local Southern Sydney Youth Crisis Refuge, which our service grew from.
Increasingly, during the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s, we found that young people from many different cultural backgrounds were coming to our Service, reflecting Australia’s successive waves of immigration. We learned on the job, the varied and complex support needs of young people from countries as diverse as Somalia, Ethiopia, Thailand, Slovakia, Iraq, Indonesia, India Sir Lanka and Sudan. “Cultural awareness” was an emerging concept and we learned quickly, liaising closely with the CALD community, to ensure we built respectful relationships.
By the mid ‘90’s, we became aware of the unmet needs of another vulnerable group of young people; those who were experiencing mental ill health and whose lives were marred by trauma. This was another challenge we set about tackling.
In 2003, with the collaboration of St. George Mental Health, NSW Housing and our local social housing provider, we initiated a landmark partnership program. Because of our advocacy for this vulnerable group, Housing NSW purchased a dedicated property of six units, for our Service, to provide housing for young people managing their mental health. SGCH managed the property, St. George Mental Health provided clinical support and we provided non-clinical mental health case management and tenancy support. This partnership lasted over 10 years and offered clients a unique opportunity for safety and security to recover, heal and develop their independence.
During 2014, our whole sector underwent an upheaval, with the Going Home Staying Home reforms. As a result of the new funding paradigm, we lost access to the 16 properties where we had previously housed young people, including our ground breaking mental health properties. With this new challenge, we took stock and looked to our strengths.
Fast forward to the 2020’s and we are still here as part of the Specialist Homelessness Service (SHS) sector. We have refined our support model, honed our skills and still place our clients at the centre of everything we do. We are committed to working with our partners in the SHS sector and the community, to access safe, affordable housing for our young clients, where they can feel secure and at home.
We continue to deliver high quality Specialist Case Management and Tenancy Support that builds young people’s capacity towards independence, breaks the cycle of homelessness and encourages them to find their place in the community of their choice.
In June 2021 we changed our name to Open Door Youth Housing Support Service Ltd. The decision was not easy - we’d built a name that was recognisable, well regarded, with a great reputation over our years of operation. We were rightly proud of ST. GAYS. However, as time went on, the decision to change the name made sense. Our new name better reflects what we do now, which is to be a dedicated all round support Case Management and Tenancy Support service to our young clients. We continue to evolve and respond to the changing needs of our clients, to make sure we place young people at the centre of flexible trauma informed care and to support them towards independence.
We wish to acknowledge and thank the Department of Communities and Justice NSW for it’s funding of our Service.