Every year, around 11,000 children and young people across Australia are taken into the care of child protection authorities because they are at serious risk of harm or have no other safe place to live. And many more experience trauma in the face of natural disasters and other hardships.
These experiences can leave children and young people feeling scared and alone, often placing them in unfamiliar environments. We know that many arrive with nothing but the clothes they are wearing and with no other belongings.
We provide Buddy Bags to these children and young people, to help meet their immediate material and personal care needs and to give them a sense of security and comfort as the first step on their journey to safety and recovery.
For children in need one backpack can mean the world.
Trauma-informed care
Buddy Bags are filled with carefully selected items that focus on the physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing of children and young people.
The Buddy Bag backpacks include:
- new pyjamas, socks and underwear, so they can dress in clean clothes
- a toothbrush, toothpaste, face washer and hairbrush to attend to their personal care needs
- a book to relax the mind, a trauma-informed toy for healing play – and an all-important teddy bear to cuddle for emotional comfort.
A Buddy Bag is something tangible a child or young person can call their own, helping to meet their immediate need – while showing them they are special, that people care for them, and that they matter.
