Adolescent Violence in the Home Systems Mapping

The lives of homeless youth are grounded in complexity and instability created through their engagement with intersecting systems of social, emotional, economic and cultural capital. If a young person grows up in a home where family violence is prevalent they are at increased risk of becoming themselves perpetrators of violence. This is known as Adolescent Violence in the Home or AVITH.

I led a project at Paper Giant to run a pilot project using a systems approach to understanding the service environment in the Australian Capital Territory, to help understand how this issue, including young people’s interactions with various services, impacts the likelihood they will become homeless.

Project team: Reuben Stanton, Dan Woods, Bonnie Graham

Clients: Canberra Innovation Network, The Millhouse Ventures, The Snow Foundation, and Hands Across Canberra

We reviewed research papers, ran systems mapping workshops, and conducted in-depth interviews with many support organisations and sector experts.

We then used an applied systems approach to explore how family and domestic violence interacts with youth homelessness in the ACT. Working with sector experts, we built a draft systems map that can aid understanding of what’s working well, what’s not, and what should change.

We then used the map to engage policy makers, subject matter experts and funding bodies to validate the draft map and fill knowledge gaps.

Because systems maps can often be overwhelming, we designed our reporting to pull out various important ‘stories’ within the map to help stakeholders read the map and understand how different parts of the system interrelate to cause homelesness. Using the map, we were able to identify opportunities to catalyse new forms of collaboration, and opportunities to design new interventions for youth at risk.

Follow-on engagements and workshops have enabled organisations in the sector to better understand their roles, challenges and opportunities to have positive impact and direct their resources effectively to address the issue of AVITH.