Carinity Education Southside celebrates 25 years of helping vulnerable teen mums

A southside school is celebrating 25 years gifting at-risk students a second chance, as one former teen mum tells how she narrowly escaped a life of drugs and crime after enrolling as a 14-year-old.

Carinity Education Southside graduate Jacqui Clevens said the school helped her to break down barriers and find her voice. Picture – contributed.

Jacqui Clevens can still remember the day she got her first ‘A’ for a school assessment, an achievement she never considered possible as an indigenous teen mum.

After falling through the cracks at numerous mainstream schools, Ms Clevens enrolled at Carinity Education Southside, an all-girls special assistance school at Sunnybank.

This year, the school is celebrating 25 years helping vulnerable young women who have faced barriers to education.

“I had struggled in primary school, which lead me to struggle in high school,” Ms Clevens said.

“Having supportive people at Southside that I could go to … it was almost like a family.

“The teachers were so understanding, supportive and thorough in the way they educated us.”

The positive effect it had on her as a teenager who had previously struggled with her education still reverberates to this day.

“The first ‘A’ I ever got was in science in Grade 9 at Southside,” Ms Clevens said.

“I still remember it like it was yesterday; the feeling of seeing that ‘A’ on the paper.

“It gave me so much self-confidence and it felt so good knowing that somebody actually believed in me.”

Carinity Education Southside founders and early supporters – Jenny Medland, Diane Heidke and Colleen Mitrow – with current school principal, Leann Faint (right). Picture: Supplied

The school has a purpose-built creche and early learning centre, which allowed teen mums such as Ms Clevens to access free, quality childcare while pursuing an education.

Long-time Southside supporter and student mentor, Diane Heidke, said since 1997 the school has helped young women “floundering in the river of life taking them nowhere’’ and helped them achieve their full potential.

“This school catches girls at a very vulnerable time and gives them the care and support missing from their lives,” Ms Heidke said.

“In doing so, what seemed impossible before – a good education – especially for young mothers, was within their reach.

“On occasion the principal at the time, Colleen Mitrow, and one of the indigenous teachers would drive to known hangouts looking for vulnerable students.

“They would bring them to school where they were given warm food, counselling and encouraged to resume their studies.

“There are many women today who testify that Southside Education saved their lives.”

Carinity Education Southside graduate Jacqui Clevens said the school helped her to break down barriers and find her voice. Picture: Supplied

Ms Mitrow, Southside Education’s foundation principal, said the school’s curriculum was set up specifically to help young women who had previously struggled in other educational environments.

“Difference is not valued in our mainstream school system. Young people’s social and emotional needs are often neglected which means such disadvantaged and marginalised young people often cannot set or aspire to reaching educational goals,” she said.

“Southside’s key premise of accepting young women and their families with unconditional positive regard was key to our success.

“We treated all the girls with the greatest respect and tailored a special response catered to their individual needs.

“What marked our school as different was probably the absolute acceptance of each girl as unique, each bringing her own special gifts to our school community.

“It was up to us to help them to recognise their abilities and to regain confidence and hope for a future.”

Since graduating as a Year 12 student in 2007, Ms Clevens has worked in residential care and community services supporting children who went through the same sort of things she did as a teen.

“If it wasn’t for Southside, I think things would have been a lot more difficult for me,” she said.

“A lot of my peers that I kicked around with as a teenager, they’re now heavily involved in drugs and alcohol … or they’re dead or in jail.

“Southside helped me in so many ways. They helped me find my voice.

“They helped break down a lot of barriers for me, as an Aboriginal person and as a young mum.

“I wouldn’t be as successful as I am without Southside.”