About Us

Our vision, values, mission and objectives.

“Our vision for young people is that they will have the opportunity to make positive choices in their lives and realise their own potential.”

Our Mission

“PICYS is committed to working with young people in a non-judgmental and holistic way that fosters a belief in empowerment, integrity and collaboration, and which provides a safe and secure environment.”

Youth work is a practice that places young people and their interests first.
Youth work is a relational practice, where the youth worker operates alongside the young person
Youth work is an empowering practice that advocates for and facilitates a young person’s independence, participation in society, connectedness and realisation of their rights.

PICYS staff work under the WA Association of Youth workers Code of Conduct.

Our Values

Our Objectives

The Objects of Perth Inner City Youth Services Inc. Association as taken from our Constitution. To provide services for young people this may include any of the following objectives.

Objective 1

A service for contacting young people in places and at times they frequently attend and gather.

Appropriate supporting services, with special emphasis on:

personal referral to existing services.
being catalysts for development of new services where none exist.
the individual in the context of wider total environment (for example family/home situations)

Objective 2

Such facilities and/or services whereby young people may attend or gather as the Council may from time to time deem appropriate.

Appropriate supporting services, with special emphasis on:

Such accommodation for young people, as the Council may from time to time deem appropriate

These objects of the Association shall also involve and/or in addition include, where appropriate (and without limitation), the following:

Identifying areas where preventative programs need to be applied and facilitating such action as is required.
Acting as a bridge between youth and available resources and services within the community.
Working in harmony with other agencies and organisations whose objects are compatible.
Promoting and facilitating research into the needs and lifestyles of young people, with special emphasis on those young people contacted in services.
Providing opportunities for social work and youth work students, and other persons interested in working for the objectives of the Association as a learning experience.
Advising government and bureaucracy on youth needs.
Educating the wider community on appropriate youth issues.
Borrowing and raising money for any of the objects and purposes of the Association, with or without security, in such manner as the Council thinks fit and applying funding, collecting funds and accepting donations or bequests to further attain the objects and purposes of the Association.
Doing all such acts as are conductive to the furtherance of the above objectives.

Background and History

In 1978 George Davies, Youth Consultant of the Uniting Church and Maureen Munro, Youth Officer with the Anglican Church, convened a meeting to discuss the young people present in the inner city. From this meeting a strong interest was expressed by inner city church bodies and other groups to set up a working party and carry out research into the issues existing for young people. The result of this research was to set up a collective of agencies to provide detached work for inner city youth. Hence in 1980, PICYS was born, and consisted of nineteen community agencies. An initial program of PICYS was the “Cave” a drop-in-Centre for young people that would eventually evolve into a space for indigenous young people.
Prior to the development of PICYS, the idea of a “Household Network” had already began in Scarborough, where volunteers from the Uniting Church had offered a spare bedroom in their homes for those young people most in need. Eventually a recognition of the value of the Household Network and the need for extra support, led to an application in 1982 to the Homeless Persons Assistance Program for funding to provide back up support for the volunteers. The feedback received was that funding for support staff would need to be accompanied by a house. Furthermore, this “model” of working would require an agency to host it. PICYS was requested to be this agency and the Household Network program of PICYS was born. By 1986, PICYS was providing independent accommodation in a number of shared houses for young people aged 16 to 25 years.
Perth Inner City Youth Services Inc. was legally established and incorporated in 1982.

PICYS had an Alcohol and other Drugs (AOD) Worker
PICYS collaborated with Freedom Centre, YouthLink, Trinity Youth Options and Curtin Uni’s Department of Social Work and Social Policy to research and report on the “Closets of SAAP (Supported Accommodation Assistance Program): the experiences of young people with diverse sexuality and gender expression access to supported accommodation services” (Mori, 2002).
This led to PICYS collaborating with with Gay & Lesbian Community Services (GLCS; now Living Proud) to deliver Opening Closets SAAP training program.
The Opening Closets SAAP Training project won a 2006 Community Services Industry Award in the highly contested category of “strengthening the community services industry”.

PICYS’ Pillar commenced with funding from the WA Mental Health Commission.
SimplyTrans booklet was developed by trans people for trans people, led by PICYS in conjunction with GLCS and WA Gender Project.

Base Camp drop in started thrice weekly as a place for young people to base themselves safely to ‘be and become’.

PICYS was a proud finalist for the WA Youth Awards ‘Small Organisational Achievement Award’.

The Trans Homelessness Pathways Project used a small grant from City of Vincent to be able to start Base Camp aGender at PICYS and collaborate with TransFolk of WA to commence their use of the ConnectGroups LGBTIQ+ Peer Support Toolkit

PICYS developed the 'Where Can I Go?’ Resource for LGBTIQA+ young people and their supports with a small grant from the City of Perth.
PICYS was nominated for a Proud Award, recognising PICYS’ solid body of work with, and commitment to, the needs of LGBTIQA+ young people.
PICYS were grateful to become WA Mental Health Awards Diversity Award recipient.

As COVID began impacting the world the WA Government response to homeless populations in the pandemic resulted in PICYS receiving increased funding to increase the PICYS’ Pillar capacity to be able to support 40 young people (from 15), named ‘OPP40’ or ‘Optimising PICYS Pillar to 40’. This commenced as a 12 month plan, but ended up lasting 37months and providing the evidence of optimal practice that led to PICYS’ Pillar being expanded to 40 in its core contract soon after OPP40 finished.
PICYS was a Shelter WA Awards 2020 ‘Innovations for People Award’ Finalist.
Through the WA Mental Health Commission’s youth homeless sector AOD capacity building program, PICYS’ Alcohol and Other Drug Education Support Service (DESS) Worker started in July 2021 to complement the homeless accommodation services we provide.
PICYS won the Community Service Excellence Awards 2021 for a Small Organisation.
PICYS received a LotteryWest grant to have renovations of the premises in 2022 to make them wheelchair accessible and easily maintained.

PICYS’ Mental Health Groups contract commenced, sustainably resourcing the existing drop in and groups, and expanding them, adding Be Social, Be Active. This year the DESS worker commenced offering in The SESH (Substance use Education, Support and Harm minimisation) too.
In August 2023 PICYS was awarded The Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Services Awards for the Psychosocial and Support category for ‘An Affirming and Holistic Approach to Working with Disadvantaged Young People’.

Funding from the Mental Health Commission was increased to enable PICYS’ Pillar to expand back to its optimum capacity to support 40 young people.