Fireside Chat Recap: Indigo Junction with Raena Kidd

This week we sat down with Raena Kidd, a youth case manager at Indigo Junction — a place-based organisation in Midland, half an hour out of Perth's CBD, supporting people across the full arc of homelessness, family violence, family support, and youth housing.

Raena came into youth work through TAFE after finishing high school, looking for "a job, but not a job that feels like a job." She tried mental health, local government, outreach roles — and then landed at a youth engagement hub for young people experiencing homelessness. That was seven years ago, and it stuck.

"This is where I belong. This is where I can make impact."

Here's what we learned.

What Indigo Junction does

A lot. Raena walked us through the whole organisation program by program — "just so I get it all right."

Their Karnany Engagement Hub is an open-door space for people experiencing homelessness or disadvantage. HEART assertive outreach, housing support via NPAH, financial counsellors, Centrelink, NDIS workers, and visiting services like Street Law, Street Doctor and Food Bank all work out of the one hub. Up the road, Karlup offers showers and laundry, and is now home to a partner Aboriginal organisation running Target 120 — supporting young people in the justice system.

Their Families Service runs on-site units for young parents under 25, community housing for families, Strong Fathers, and — since merging with CLAN — broader parenting support. Their Family Domestic Violence stream runs two Koolkuna refuges, crisis response, and youth and adult advocacy and counselling.

Then there's youth, which is where Raena sits. LIFT (Living Independently For the First Time) case-manages young people who've come through Midland child protection until they're 25. Youth housing runs a five-bed crisis house and up to thirteen transitional beds.

Raena works in transitional — which for some young people is the first house they've ever had.

What keeps her going

"The hard days just make the wins even bigger. And our wins can be really, really small."

Seeing a young person achieve one small thing after months of work — we did it. That's the fuel.

"What a privilege it is to be a youth worker. And I love what I do so much."

A day that swings in hours

There isn't a typical day. Raena described the shape of it: a morning home visit, a walk by the river, helping with groceries or a budgeting conversation or a rental payment plan. Then the afternoon might pivot to crisis — a young person's mental health deteriorating, or substance use tipping over, or a court appearance that needs someone beside them.

Being present through the pointy end — staying with someone while they access acute care, making sure services don't land on them in ways that re-traumatise — is as much of the job as the domestic skills and the shopping trips.

Shared housing, and how it actually works

Most transitional housing is shared. And unlike the rest of us, young people in crisis don't get to choose who they live with.

"You kind of have to do this wild thing where you match people without really knowing people."

The team does their best — meet-and-greets, matching where they can — but the work starts once people move in. Friends show up and stay too long. Rent inspections come around. Tenancy concepts like rights, responsibilities, and "your housemate has a bed too" are brand new for a lot of young people. House meetings, mediation, and patient skill-building are how Indigo Junction turns shared housing into a safe place to learn what a tenancy actually is — before someone has to learn it the hard way in a private rental.

And when rent slips, the response isn't eviction — it's a payment plan. "We're setting them up for the real world."

Advocating upstream

A lot of Raena's work happens outside the houses.

She's part of a Youth Rough Sleepers Coordination Group — fortnightly meetings across services where the sector brings complex cases to the table, asks where's the housing, where's the support, what's going to be appropriate for them, and closes the gaps together. A lot of the work is catching young people early — first-time rough sleepers — before long-term homelessness takes hold.

"When young people are 18 to 25, they're battling adults to get housing. So you've really got to advocate for why they deserve it too."

Referrals are life admin, times ten

Raena described doing several housing referrals in a single day for one young person. Every service has a form. Every form is another chance to be rejected. And rejection at the wrong moment — when a young person has just opened up about needing help — can re-traumatise them.

Part of the work is holding that space. Sitting with someone through the paperwork. Simplifying it. Making the referral feel like a conversation, not an interrogation. And catching the rejections before they land on the young person directly.

What "good help" looks like

We asked Raena what members of the Mobilise community could do. Her answer:

"Our whole career is a relational practice. It's all about relationships."

"A lot of young people just want you to listen without judgment, without trying to fix everything all at once. Just let them tell their story as much as they want or as little as they want."

Know where to point people when you hit the edges of what you can offer. Do a bit of Googling. Mention Ask Izzy. Be honest: "I don't have all the answers, but let's try and find somewhere together that can help you."

You don't have to be a youth worker. You just have to be a good neighbour who takes the time.

How to get involved

• If you're in Perth / Midland and want to support Indigo Junction, start at indigojunction.org.au/get-involved.

• If you're anywhere in Australia and helping a young person who needs services, Ask Izzy is a solid first stop for housing, food, health, and support.

• Stay tuned for more Fireside Chats — coming up next: Wombat with Sophronia Armatolos on 29 April.

Thanks to Raena for the generosity of her time and her story. The young people she works with are lucky to have her in their corner.

This is part of our Fireside Chat series — where we sit down with people running frontline services and ask them directly: what would help?