By Mikayla van Loon
Lilydale’s Bridge Builders has just celebrated 20 years supporting young people in the Yarra Ranges, a network that has helped thousands of youth.
When founder and director Phil Stenhouse and his co-founder Richard Lanham started noticing the cyclical nature of normal youth services that regarded each person as just a number or part of a caseload, he knew something had to change.
“Back in the day, we thought, ‘well, we could just keep complaining about the services, or we could try and make something different ourselves’,” he said.
“So that’s why we started Bridge Builders. We wanted to see young people move out of a cycle of issue and challenge to a place where they felt like they could make a difference.”
Twenty years on and Mr Stenhouse said young people have not changed, they still face challenges, but the external environment has changed around them.
“What probably has changed is a lot more of the focus is on things like mental health, breakdown of the family, disconnection because of isolation, all those sorts of things have had a massive impact over the last decade or so.”
Adapting with the times and what young people have needed over the two decades has helped keep Bridge Builders current and effective.
“We try to move with the culture of young people. So as the culture shifts, we shift with it to be able to keep connecting, relating, enriching, and helping young people,” Mr Stenhouse said.
“For us, it’s about a four year process with young people, not a five minute process. So that helps us change attitudes that change behaviours and it helps them practice new behaviours.”
The Bridge Builders philosophy has been built on “stay with what you know and don’t try to be all things” and “stick to your knitting” to ensure the best service can be provided to young people without confusing their process.
That’s why Bridge Builders focuses on “one degree of change”, the idea of changing one small thing at a time and practising it regularly to eventually create a different mindset.
Mr Stenhouse said those foundations are woven into each program like BB Nights on Mondays, the girls retreats, counselling services, pastoral care, community events and leadership programs.
“You’ve got to continue to widen your scope but realise that there are a lot of people, a lot of organisations in this space, and so trying to really collaborate with other people who are experts in certain fields, just means that you can then share the load rather than trying to be all things to all young people.”
Collaboration has become especially important as the demand for youth services and support has increased.
“There’s over 17,000 young people in our cohort, just in the Yarra Ranges alone. So there’s a lot of work to do.
“Every youth service in the Yarra Ranges can be full and still not reach every young person.
“So for me, it is a matter of, who do we need to connect with, who do we need to have involved with us in order to reach more young people not just in the Yarra Ranges but we’re looking at a national movement.”
The importance of an organisation like Bridge Builders, Mr Stenhouse said he believes has always been high but perhaps even more so after two years of isolation and disconnection.
“Young people are looking for a place where they can feel loved, they feel valued, they belong, and they’re accepted.
“There is a need for young people to really learn how to do relationships, how to build friendships, how to get out of the house, how to take risks and they’re feeling social anxiety and all that sort of stuff.”
Over 20 years Mr Stenhouse said seeing thousands of young people change the trajectory of their life and sharing in their progress has to be the biggest privilege of what he does.
“It’s been quite an honour to be in that space just seeing a young person wrestle through some of their challenges, some of their thought processes and then to see the light come on and then go a new way.”
In its twentieth year of service to the Yarra Ranges Shire, Bridge Builders was pleased to host its biggest fundraising event ever, raising over $240,000 in the My Kids Postie Bike Ride, money that will help the not-for-profit expand its programs and resources not only in the Yarra Ranges but hopefully nationally.
