Our Impact

This has been fostered through 45 years of ‘walking alongside’ their clients: generations of families in the Redfern, Waterloo, La Perouse and more recently Woolloomooloo communities. Weave provides wrap around casework support, assisting young people and families to thrive in areas of housing, employment, education, mental health and connecting to culture. Reducing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal young people in the criminal justice system is a key priority for Weave.

In 2016, VFFF contributed $362,965 over three years towards the Creating Futures Justice Project, designed to reduce recidivism and give young Aboriginal people a genuine chance to create a future and identity outside the criminal justice system.

In 2017, the average rate of young Aboriginal people in NSW reoffending within 12 months of release from custody was 57.3%. In contrast, the average reoffending rate for participants in Weave’s Creating Futures program in the same age range was 4.11%.

Creating Futures successfully employs an Aboriginal Healing Framework to provide a service which is trauma-informed, strengths-based, culturally safe and client-led. The VFFF funding also supported Weave to undertake a three-year independent evaluation of Creating Futures, which demonstrated the statistical success of the program and provides insights into what makes their work so effective. You can view the Executive Summary here.

Weave’s continued success highlights the value of trusted organisations with long-standing ties and deep roots in the communities they support, and we are continually impressed by what they have been able to achieve.