I wish I had a place to live where I feel safe. Where I don’t hear dad yelling and mum crying and where I don’t have to hide in my room waiting for the footsteps ‘cause I’m next.

Peter – a Lighthouse young person

A Typical Story

I would come home every night wondering whether this was the night my mother would try and kill herself. She had threatened to do it many times previously, but recently she had actually started trying to do it, in a number of different ways.

Nowadays, when I’m at my friend’s home, and hear her parents laughing, playing and smiling, I wonder whether I’m the only one that has had to endure the same experiences that I have. I wonder whether I have caused my mother’s behaviour.

I went home that night and there she was, standing naked in the driveway, screaming out loud to anyone who would listen – and not making any sense. Neighbours were standing in their front gardens, riveted to the spot – just staring up at her – and then staring at me. I tried to do everything I could. But, her last words ‘I’m jumping’ keep going round and round in my head. I can’t talk about what I witnessed, I can’t say what I experienced – but I can say that I didn’t see her after that. And so began my life at the age of 16 in the welfare system.

Being in the welfare system was a whole new experience, and not one I’d wish on anyone.

However, now that I’ve come to Lighthouse, I’ve found a family – I belong – and people care – and I know that I can stay ….. it’s just like being at my friend’s house where I used to hang out when I could - where his parents are there – and his life is pretty normal.

"Every morning before I leave for work, I go into Sally’s room and give her a kiss and a hug goodbye. She always tells me she loves me and every night she reminds me not to forget. Sally has huge problems controlling her anger and finds it very hard to trust others. With Lighthouse she has found a place where she feels safe enough to ask for the love and affection that she missed out on growing up."

Female Support Carer

"I feel very privileged to have been here. I now love having the depths and the heights in my life because I feel alive every day and know I can cope even when it’s bad"

Former Lighthouse resident

A Not Uncommon Story

Trudy’s father left when she was three years old. Years later her mother began seeing someone who Trudy fought with all the time, and at the age of 14 she was told to leave home. Trudy stayed with some relatives for a while until an uncle tried to sexually abuse her – and no-one in the family believed her when she told them what had happened. She dropped out of school and began ‘couch surfing’ from one friend’s house to another and met some new friends who introduced her to drugs and alcohol.

For the next few years Trudy moved between friends’ houses and hostels. Looking back now, Trudy sees that lots of people tried to help her, but either they didn’t know how – or she wouldn’t let them.

From couch surfing – to occasionally sleeping rough Trudy eventually found herself in a refuge. She smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol and had taken speed, ecstasy and marijuana. She had been sexually abused twice and was very distrusting of adults – in fact she was so angry she found it difficult to talk to anyone.

Trudy eventually came to one of our Lighthouse ‘family style’ homes. For the first few weeks, Trudy ‘sussed out’ the staff, looking for ways of affirming that adults were untrustworthy. After a while she began to notice that the carers, the psychologists and the counsellors genuinely cared about her – as they still do. They cared about her story – and cared for her as an individual. The more of her story that Trudy told, the more the carers and care team were able to help her.

With their help Trudy stabilised her life and stopped taking drugs and smoking. She began to talk to the three other young people in the Lighthouse home, and became used to the rhythm of a normal family life. Two years on, she has now started to become interested in cooking – and is even thinking of returning to school.

Before coming to Lighthouse, Natalie had been in and out of refuges and living on the streets. Her family had forced her from home because of her drug dependency, which stemmed from the emotional and sexual abuse she’d suffered there.

Her mother was ill, her stepfather an alcoholic, and since she was ten years old she’d taken responsibility for her two younger brothers who suffered from disabilities.

Natalie is now twenty and has been living at Lighthouse for two years. With the support of the clinical care team, she has been totally drug-free for eighteen months, and her self-confidence and self-esteem are soaring.

"Lighthouse feels safe and secure, and I feel free to spread my wings", Natalie said

Vignette – From Dreams to Reality

Susie has just moved into her own place; a two-bedroom flat. Susie agrees now that a home of her own makes her feel independent and grown up.

Now working as a chef, Susie recently graduated as the Apprentice of the Year at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Restaurant here in Melbourne. Susie’s new home and job are the culmination of her hard work during her three years at our East Malvern home. Susie is only too happy to say that her time with Lighthouse was immensely positive and enjoyable – but also very hard work.

When Susie arrived at Lighthouse, she had experienced long term transience and abuse. She spent a number of years in Juvenile Detention for violent offences. She experienced a life of turmoil and heartache, she would often wake to find her father injecting drugs in the living room and her mother unconscious in her bedroom. Her father’s idea of physical affection was repeatedly punching her in the head until he was satisfied he had taught her a lesson.

She spent four years on the street couch surfing, engaging in a homeless sub culture that left her scarred and emotionless.

When coming to Lighthouse she was disengaged, emotionally - and physically abusive - and one of the most challenging young people to have entered one of our homes.

Like a number of our young people the journey to recovery from such horrendous abuse has been a long one, sometimes taking over 3 years of intensive therapeutic intervention before noticeable change was evident. In Susie’s case it took 4 years.

The key to the success of the Lighthouse approach is the connection the young people form with their primary carers. Susie says - “They’re basically like your parents, and considering they’re there to look after you, and they’re helping get your life on track, obviously you want a good relationship with them.”

Importantly for Susie, Lighthouse didn’t just offer accommodation. What it did offer was a positive role model of what life could be. “I learnt to believe that not only could people help me but I could help others, and from that I became a role model – not so much a young person any more – but a role model for other young people. I think that’s what Lighthouse taught me.”