Bittersweet Project

Today is International Coffee Day and the Geelong Community Foundation is proud to use this day to highlight The Bittersweet Project, an initiative of MacKillop Family Services.
MacKillop Family Services works for the rights of all children to be free to enjoy their childhood in safe and loving homes, where they are nurtured, and have a sense of belonging and cultural identity.
Established in 1997, the organisation supports disadvantaged and at-risk children, young people and families throughout Victoria and nationally. It offers education services, early intervention programs for at-risk parents, carers, children and young people, out-of-home care for children unable to live with their birth family (residential and foster care) as well as services supporting homeless youth.
MacKillop Philanthropy Manager Dan Mars, said that the organisation’s education services, including three specialist schools located in Geelong, Maidstone and Caulfield, assist some 450 young people from 6-18 years with diverse and complex needs who find it difficult to learn in mainstream schools.
“For these students, barriers to learning include family violence, neglect or living in out-of-home care,” he said.
“We are committed to delivering education and learning programs that work to build confidence and self-esteem with a long-term aim to support our students gain skills to assist with further learning and/or employment pathways.”
The Bittersweet Project launched in 2019 as a small on-site school café at MacKillop’s Geelong specialist school catering to staff and students. It offered a creative way to teach literacy, numeracy, teamwork and organisational skills, and provided opportunity for senior students to gain hospitality skills that would help as they transitioned from school to employment, or further education.
“We are incredibly proud of the work our Geelong senior students have done in creating and driving the Bittersweet project. The project was an immediate hit with students, proving so successful that on days the café ran student attendance rose from 40% to 85%,” said Dan.
“In 2019 the café was recognised by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority as an outstanding example of the diverse ways in which young people can be challenged and extended to achieve great learning outcomes.
“Since then, students have developed a partnership with the Bellarine Living and Learning Centre, utilising its kitchen to recreate the school café to provide tasty snacks and coffees for local disadvantaged people.
“We are thrilled the students want to further expand the café by taking Bittersweet on the road, offering their café fare via a food van. Thanks to funding from the Geelong Community Foundation and the Percy Baxter Charitable Trust (Perpetual Trustees) students expect to launch their mobile food van late 2023/early 2024. We are so grateful to our philanthropic partners, who have made this possible. ”
Geelong Community Foundation CEO Gail Rodgers said that it was understood that educational attainment develops higher skills, leading to higher rates of employment, productivity and lifetime earnings for individuals.
“The Foundation recognises that alternate educational pathways are critical to achieve this outcome as not every student is suited to mainstream school settings,” she said.
“This is one of the reasons why the Bittersweet Project was so appealing to fund.”
The Bittersweet Project’s success is important because the child and family services sector continues to face a range of significant challenges, in particular the rising numbers of children coming into care with increasing complexities and behaviours.
“Every child MacKillop supports has a social and/or emotional disability: between 2021 and 2022, the rate of emotional abuse experienced by young people coming into our residential care homes increased 6.3%, triggering additional need for more therapeutic and evidence-based interventions to support positive outcomes. This increasing complexity of behaviours has also resulted in high staff turnover (approximately 25% annually) and a rising number of foster carers leaving the system (approx. 14% of foster carers quit each year),” said Dan.
“Nationally, the rates of family/domestic violence continue to rise (13% in 2020 according to ABS figures). In 2022, 81.7% of the young people MacKillop supports in residential care had a childhood history of family violence compared to 74.8% in 2021. The long-term impact of family/domestic violence includes homelessness, poverty and involvement with child protection.”
“We know poor learning outcomes affect a person’s life-long employment prospects, health, social connectedness and reliance on welfare. Therefore, we are committed to delivering education and learning programs that work to build confidence, self-esteem and help students long-term gain the skills necessary to assist with further education, or transition to employment.”
Dan goes on to explain that families today are experiencing more complex issues than ever before.
“Across our programs, we see the ongoing impact of isolation following COVID-19 lockdowns, which has been compounded by a range of additional factors from increasing natural disasters to rising costs of living, all of which are placing additional pressures on at-risk families,” he said.
“We are driven by an unwavering commitment to the wellbeing and safety of all children, young people and families. We know the best place for a child is in a safe, supportive home environment where they are loved and nurtured. For this reason, we strive to connect with families as early as possible, to help them create an environment in which children and young people can thrive.”
“Listening to voices of the young people and families we work with is critical to informing the types of services and programs we provide: we know they are the experts when it comes to their own lives, and only through deep and respectful listening to their needs can we deliver the outcomes they deserve.”
Gail said that the Geelong Community Foundation was excited to partner with the Percy Baxter Trust, along with a contribution from MacKillop, to make this project a reality.
“This collaboration has ensured the Bittersweet Project can expand, giving students a broader environment in which to learn and grow and giving staff the tools to effectively engage and support,” she said.
Dan also points to the importance of ongoing philanthropic and community support.
“Most of the funding MacKillop receives to run its programs and services comes from a combination of federal, state and local government. However, this funding does not cover all services, particularly our ability to trial and pilot new and innovative programs,” he said..
“Our work is incredibly challenging. Through our frontline staff we have independent data about what’s working, what isn’t and what could potentially work if only we have the resources to make it happen. This is why philanthropic support is so important: this funding enables us to try initiatives in areas where need is greatest and to deliver long-lasting results. No every project is a success, but everyone starts with a single aim – to improve the lives of those in our care.”