Ms Amy Carey:

It is a good question. We are trying to figure that out ourselves all the time. Youth work is something that is really hard to measure in terms of its impact. We obviously measure statistics and we can get feedback from young people and other partners. We do that, but often what is not recognised is the deeper work that youth work does.

We do that through capturing the stories of young people. We work in a long-term intervention model. We start working with young people at the age of five and work with them until they are in their mid-20s. As I have been in the role for longer, I have seen that it can take a decade before we see those deeper impacts. There are the small wins on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis of seeing your people being able to excel in areas, find their strengths and have new opportunities, but there is also the long-term work that we are doing. We are based in areas where the young people whom we are working with have many more challenges than many young people across the country. We are starting at a different point, so we are working with them to try to overcome the obstacles that they are facing, to hopefully be on par with their peers.