About us

The drum youth service

The drum delivers youth services in Carlton, Kensington, North Melbourne, the Melbourne CBD, as well as the Richmond and Collingwood public housing estates.

Since July 2009 a partnership with City of Melbourne has seen us connect with, have fun and support young people aged 12 to 25 who live, work, study or have strong connections to Carlton and Parkville. From July 1st 2018 our reach and responsibilities grew- we became the municipal wide youth service in the City of Melbourne expanding our reach into new geographic areas and communities including in Kensington, North Melbourne and the CBD.

Excitingly, since July 2017 we have also been working in partnership with City of Yarra for the delivery of our Youth Peer Leader program and other activities young people aged 8 to 21 who live on the Richmond and Collingwood Estates.

To augment this work we seek funding from state, commonwealth and philanthropic to respond to the needs of local young people and their families. As of July 2018 we are funded by the Victorian State Government for the development of a resource for queer and transgender young people of Color (with a HEY Grant), the Only in the Fam Project (with Engage Funding), (in)visible (with VMC funding) & VoiceFest (FreeZa funding).

The drum is situated within drummond street services (ds), a leading community and family mental health and wellbeing service provider. Our work seeks to be; inclusive, supportive and to provide safe and affirmative spaces for young people to connect.

We collaborate with young people to design and deliver opportunities that enable them to connect with one another, their families and the wider community. We know this is crucial, as these years are an important time for a young person. For this reason the drum works to provide pathways to assistance if young people need it. We can then supporting a young person to for example, stay connected to education or explore different education, training or employment pathway. Other examples include supporting a young person with their social or family life, or to realise their personal aspirations with counselling or case support.

The drum creates opportunities to amplify the views and experiences of and as a platform for different voices of young people. We are open to all but assertively engage and deliver programs for young people who are often more marginalised or who experience discrimination. We do so because we know that these social forces limit and reduce the opportunity for them to realise their hopes and aspirations.

Our focus on young people in Carlton and Parkville means we seek to assertively engage with young people of these backgrounds/ identities:

  • Young people of color who are often referred to as culturally, ‘racially’, ethnically and religiously diverse (CALD), including Refugee and humanitarian entrant young people
  • International students
  • Public housing residents

and/or those identifying as

  • Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI+)

The drum’s programs and services reflects our understanding that young people are negotiating intersecting social differences. This means their experience of marginalisation can be compounded by multiple sites of oppression and discrimination. We believe it is not only important to acknowledge this disadvantage in the service context, but that we need to actively support young people to be able to name and dismantle these barriers. As part of this commitment, we celebrate and champion the great many young people who successfully and deftly negotiate social disadvantage. We build platforms for these young people to demonstrate to their peers and the wider communities that negative experiences don’t have to define or limit them.