The Education Pathways Program

The Education Pathways Program – Breaking the link between homelessness and education disadvantage | Launch Housing

The Education Pathways Program (EPP), a philanthropically funded program in its eighth year, operates out of Launch Housing and is uniquely placed to address gaps for at risk children in the current service system.

We are the only program in Victoria providing targeted early intervention educational supports to ensure children experiencing or at risk of homelessness and family violence to maintain their connection to primary school and kinder.

Unlike other educational support programs, our services are not limited to a specified catchment area.  The EPP takes a trauma informed approach, providing consistent support that follows children experiencing transience across catchments.

Our multi-disciplinary support model recognises the importance of school and community as a protective factor in addressing the educational disadvantage associated with homelessness. We provide early help for families and change life trajectories, as overviewed here

As family violence continues to be a driving cause of homelessness for women and children, many of the children we support have become ‘invisible’ within our community and only acknowledged when presenting at a homeless service with their parents. For some of the children we work with, we are the only system engaging with them at the time. Our objective is to support Victorian kinder and primary school students experiencing homelessness to:

• help them engage or re-engage in school,
• improve their attendance and engagement, and
• close gaps in their learning.

The EPP provides a two-pronged approach to support:

1. Intensive student and family support to help children experiencing homelessness to engage with school, address children’s learning gaps, including assessment by the EPP psychologist and/or the EPP speech pathologist if required.
2. Capacity-building with school teams around best-practice supports for children who have experienced homelessness and trauma.

Throughout our work with children and parents we have a created a robust data collection system which includes direct feedback from the children when attending groups or relating to the overall service.

Speakers: Launch Housing