Boys Town Engadine. A Family Preservation Programme

Abstract

This paper presents an overview and analysis of the Boys' Town programme, a family preservation service in Sydney, Australia. The programme is designed to provide sustainable, strengths based and solutions focussed interventions for families in crisis. The service provides both educational programmes (as a registered school) and welfare programmes (accommodation, counselling, behavioural support, social and emotional support), with the aim of positively re-engaging young people with their family and with education. This paper explores the key principles on which the programme is founded and analyses preliminary data on programme effectiveness. These data indicates that the programme is very successful in improving social, emotional, psychological and educational outcomes for young people. The paper then concludes with some principles for effective work with young people, hased on an examination of what works in the Boys' Town model.