Young Allies Foundation

We want to offer programs that can be flexibly delivered around the current and easing restrictions across the country. Our care programs include community dinners, care hampers and cafe socials. Each of these events and projects will allow for young people in the community to engage in important benevolent projects. It will also be an opportunity for paediatric patients and families to socialise outside a clinical environment, offering much needed relief from the stresses of ongoing medical treatment. These programs embody a bridge between the hospitals and their neighbouring communities so everyone involved can feel supported and empowered. In the process we will see relief delivered to patients and families at a time of need. We hope that these initiatives will ease the day of a big and stressful procedure or maybe it will comfort patients who have travelled far away from home and are without their extended family and friends. The Young Allies Foundation wants to be there to offer support in those important moments.

Young Allies was inspired by a sister organisation in America called the Youth Advisory Council (YAC) at Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital. The Youth Advisory Council was formed by patients in remission, cancer survivors, family members and those in the community who wanted to give back. The Youth Advisory Council advised the hospital on areas of family-centred care and they put on monthly events for the enjoyment of patients and their families. 

I am the sibling of two brothers who were born with nephrogenic diabetes insipidus (NDI). As a family, we came to know Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital as a second home. I started volunteering and sat on the YAC for a number of years looking to give back and support the patients and families at Joe DiMaggio.

I moved back to Australia in 2015 and I set out on the path to setup a similar organisation where young people could offer support and reprieve to paediatric patients and their families. I saw the Young Allies Foundation as a bridge I hoped to build between the local community and our paediatric hospitals across Australia.

The Young Allies Foundation hopes to empower young people to make a positive impact on the lives of others. 

In the world of medicine and long term treatment people often think of clinical care at the forefront. Over the years leading hospitals and healthcare providers have realised that patient-and family-centred care is a vital complement to conventional treatment. Healthcare needs to focus on the social welfare of patients and families along with the clinical. The Young Allies Foundation is addressing that need in our projects and our programs. Hospitals can be quite insular places, especially now with all of the additional restrictions. We want patients and their families to feel supported by their communities and we hope to bridge the divide. That's why we work to empower young people to volunteer and support our projects, we're trying to champion a tried and tested peer-to-peer dynamic that has proven to be quite powerful.

Our work is different than other organisations that provide support and services to patients and families because our organisation is youth-led and community focused. We are all about building a bridge between the local community and its children's hospitals. If we champion a dynamic of young people helping young people then we can build on this symbiotic relationship. Young people in the community are developing skills of compassion, leadership and civic duty while children and families in hospital are benefiting from a young person's perspective, togetherness and support. This peer-to-peer dynamic that our organisation is built on is a tried and tested concept that is based on a model developed at Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital in Florida. We have nothing like it here in Australia. 

The Australian Government has classified us as a Public Benevolent Institution and the key word in that is 'benevolent', we're defined as an organisation working to bring respite and happiness to a group of people who's pain and suffering goes beyond the ordinary human experience. We are doing this by connecting people with their community in times of need. We are also engaging young people to become active custodians in their communities.  We are trying to take something grim like the idea of children with life-threatening illness and surround those patients and families with support. Through our programs we can champion youth leadership and community impact, hopefully inspiring a new generation of generous Australians.