Reconnect Grant Opportunity

Reconnect

The Australian Government is inviting organisations via a restricted non-competitive process to apply to continue delivering services under 2.1 – Families and Children, Outcome 2 – Families and Communities, Sub-Activity: Youth Homelessness Reconnect. 

The Reconnect program is a community based early intervention and prevention program for young people aged 12 to 18 years (or 12 to 21 years in the case of newly arrived youth) who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, and their families.

The Australian Government has announced up to $117 million for new three year funding agreements (1 July 2018 to 30 June 2021), with the option to extend funding for a further two years (subject to providers meeting performance objectives) for Reconnect service providers.

The Reconnect program has a proven record of stabilising the lives of vulnerable youth by helping them keep connected with their families, communities and education/training or employment opportunities.

The aim of Reconnect is to prevent homelessness by intervening early with families and young people to stabilise and improve their housing situation and improve their level of engagement with family, work, education, training, employment and their local community.

Reconnect services provide counselling, group work, mediation and practical support to the whole family, to help break the cycle of homelessness. Reconnect providers also purchase other services to meet the individual needs of clients, such as specialised mental health services.

From 1 July 2018, the Reconnect program will emphasise early intervention and prevention. Refocusing early intervention and prevention will mean more young people in need of assistance are identified early and have access to services before they become homeless or disengaged, and before problems compound.

Reconnect services will be expected to work collaboratively with schools and a range of core services to increase the early intervention capacity of the service system, and to make sure all clients referred to Reconnect either receive assistance or are directed to more appropriate services.

The final amount of funding available is subject to the application of the efficiency dividend and indexation, which is determined through the Australian Government’s Budget process.

As a result of this process, the Commonwealth intends to fund 102 Reconnect services.

More information

More information about the services under the Families and Children – Reconnect program and its delivery in Australia, as well as requirements for invited organisations, can be found in the Grant Opportunity Guidelines.

Other grant opportunity documents are only accessible by invited organisations on the

GrantConnect website.

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Organisations and individuals interested in Community Grants Hub grant rounds are encouraged to subscribe to receive alerts when new information is made available.

Other future grant opportunities are published on GrantConnect, the new Whole of Government information system for Australian Government grants.

Contacting the Community Grants Hub

If you would like assistance please call the Community Grants Hub Hotline on 1800 020 283 and/or support@communitygrants.gov.au.

More information about the Community Grants Hub can be found at the Community Grants Hub website.

Please quote 2017-1087 Reconnect program when you phone or email the Community Grants Hub.