Berry Street is one of Australia's largest independent family service organisations, dedicated to supporting children, young people, and families across Victoria. With a mission to help children and families recover from the effects of violence, abuse, and neglect, Berry Street provides a wide range of services including foster care, residential care, family services, education, and trauma support. Through advocacy, research, and innovative programs, Berry Street strives to create safe and nurturing environments where all children can thrive and reach their full potential.
Dr Allison Cox Director, Take Two
Jen Willis Communications Manager, Take Two
Berry Street’s Take Two program provides therapeutic outreach support to infants, children and young people who are displaying emotional, behavioural or mental health difficulties as a result of abuse, neglect and/or family violence.
Take Two has been operating in Victoria for 20 years, evolving in its delivery approach and partnerships to provide tailored support to young people and their support networks. The program has had three evaluations and multiple academic partnerships to support the growth and development of the interventions.
The innovative Take Two program brings a trauma-informed neurobiological, developmentally, and culturally informed approach to clinical services, training, and research to produce both evidence-informed and evidence-generating practice.
The program is underpinned by relevant research and literature in trauma-informed care and child development. The program is not only informed by practice expertise, leveraging insights from trauma-informed care practitioners and mental health professionals, but also valuable research partnerships. Take Two is a partnership between Berry Street, La Trobe University, Mindful (Centre for Training and Research in Developmental Health at University of Melbourne), and the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA). Take Two works in collaborative partnerships with many different agencies including Phoenix Australia, Kids First, Better Health Network, In Touch, Thorne Harbour Health, Mallee Accommodation and Support Program, Anglicare, Mackillop and WRISC Family Violence Support and offers support in various settings.
It now supports victims of family violence who are not involved with child protection, and adolescents using violence at home. It operates a Carer Led Connect Centre and provides services to schools. Additionally, Take Two provide sector upskilling and clinical training to other practitioners, as well as fee-for-service therapeutic consultancy.
The three broad, empirically supported levels of response include:
Interventions focus on recovery and healing and require close collaboration with the child or young person as well as their current and potential support network, such as the families, systems, and carers that surround them. The program extends its impact beyond individual therapy, collaborating with other community service organisations, Aboriginal controlled organisations, education systems, child protection, The Orange Doors, justice systems and broader social networks to create broader networks of trauma-informed change.
The program was initiated to address the critical developmental needs of children who have experienced severe neglect, abuse, or disrupted attachment. The Victorian Government commissioned the ‘When Care is not enough’ report (1999) which recognised the profound impact of these adversities on young lives and recommended a state-wide mental health oriented therapeutic service for children in out of home care.
Berry Street, along with its partners, was funded to deliver an innovative service that aimed to provide trauma-informed care and therapeutic support to children and young people in out-of-home care. The aim of the program was to shift service delivery from a crisis response approach to a whole community approach to children’s healthy development and recovery.
Since its inception in 2004, Take Two has provided therapeutic services funded largely by the Victorian Government, aimed at supporting trauma recovery for children, young people, parents, caregivers, and broader family and community networks. Initially focused on children in Child Protection services at risk of emotional and behavioural difficulties due to developmental trauma, the program has expanded its services and settings.
Take Two recently analysed data from a group of 2,100 children and young people that they worked with between 2017 and 2021. All experienced childhood trauma and received intensive Take Two services. Almost all the young children Take Two worked with over these three years were experiencing moderate or severe symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when Take Two first met them. Difficulties included flashbacks, not sleeping, high anxiety, anger, and symptoms of depression.
Following Take Two intervention, more than 80 per cent of these children were experiencing stabilised or improved mental health.
Other program’s outcomes include:
The program has made significant improvements to the lives of severely disadvantaged children and young people. Such improvements highlight the value of interventions that address young people’s trauma symptoms within the context of the systems surrounding them, effectively establishing a therapeutic web of people to support healing and recovery.
“They did not once make me feel like it was just their job, their 9-5, got to get out of here. They really followed through with everything. My child loved coming here (to Take Two), as soon as it was Take Two day, she just loved it. Sometimes my child was not, you know kids with trauma don’t always work well, then they would come to our house.“
“If it wasn’t for Take Two, I believe she would still be in her shell, if she had to do so called normal counselling, it wouldn’t have worked with her. That’s when they got me a worker as well, so when my child was having her counselling, I was in the other room and you know someone I could vent to, give my concerns to and then whatever it was they would try to follow through with other workers that weren’t getting back to me. It was good knowing someone had my back and was you know fighting in my corner for me.”
“[I picked the traffic card to represent my work with Take Two] … because I thought we were just going to be stuck in traffic, but it slowly got creative and then we (my sister and I) started to trust them and they started to help. They help us understand and us to help them understand. We’re not in the traffic at all, we’ve just moved into another lane and gone out of the traffic, and we are all good. If we are not all communicating it would all end up crashing into each other.”
“For us … it was more getting along, and Mum saying what she’s done wrong and what we’ve done wrong and we all work it out together. Because if you’re just in the corner doing it yourself, it’s not going to work out.“
Numerous measures are utilised across the intervention period to determine outcomes.
These include:
Take Two reflects a holistic strategy toward caring for infants, children and young people who have experienced trauma. Key features of the program include:
Evidence-informed trauma assessment
Personalised intervention plans based on evidence-informed practice in trauma assessment and care.
Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMTTM)
Integrating NMTTM for tailored, developmentally-aligned therapeutic interventions.
Strengths-based relational approach
Focusing on resilience and empowering participants, actively involving children, young people and families in decision-making through collaboration.
Building external partnerships for diverse expertise and resources.
Regular feedback and adjustments based on ongoing data collection.
Adapting services to ensure accessibility and engagement.
Emphasising cultural competence for a diverse participant base.
Developing external service partnerships supports comprehensive, outside of business hours safety and care planning, and addresses increased service demand.
Incorporating the voices of clients and those with lived experience can support in program design and delivery.
When implementing an evidenced based intervention, starting slowly and at a small scale ensures implementation fidelity and sustainability.
COVID meant Take Two had to pivot from being an entirely face-to-face outreach service to a hybrid model using telehealth at times. This was challenging but has led to some real benefits to a more flexible service delivered to their service users.
When asked about their future direction, Take Two indicated their next steps include:
A Randomised Control Trial being conducted by Harvard University and the Commonwealth Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet indicate ongoing efforts to continue to validate Take Two’s effectiveness.
Want to learn more? OPEN can help!
Get assistance !
OPEN Team
open@cfecfw.asn.au
