The young participants may come to the weekend camp with a mask on, but they soon realise it’s one of the few places they don’t have to hide who they are, a place where it’s okay to not be okay.

Here they are accepted by their peers, regardless of what they’ve done.

These aren’t bad kids. They’ve just had bad things happen to them.

The trauma in their lives – horrific experiences that no one should go through, let alone a child or adolescent – often manifests itself in crime, anti-social behaviour, depression or anxiety.

Youth Insearch has a phenomenal success rate, transforming the lives of thousands of young people, because it gets to the underlying root of the problem.

It doesn’t create change by using complex psychology theories. It creates change through caring. These kids don’t know what it’s like to have someone care about them or to have someone to trust.

Young people that have had their trust breached so many times, they’ll leave the room rather than do simple trust exercises.

Young people who have been craving love so much, a simple group hug can reduce them to tears.

Youth Insearch is still searching for government support. For more than a decade, the federal government has funded the program, but its annual $400,000 funding has not been renewed. 

The Leader has lobbied hard for the government to give the charity funding certainty through its Kids Back on Track campaign.

So far the government has offered to provided Youth Insearch with $50,000 to see it through to the end of the year.

Deputy Prime Minister and New England MP Barnaby Joyce organised a face-to-face meeting between Youth Insearch advocates and Social Services Minister Christian Porter. Mr Porter pointed Youth Insearch to two grants it could apply for to make up the required $400,00, and promised his office would guide Youth Insearch through the application process – but stopped short of giving the program funding certainty.

It’s time to stop beating around the bush. When the government is giving corporations a $50 billion tax cut, while spending another $50 billion on a handful of submarines, but is unable to find a mere $400,000 for a program with a proven track record of success, you’ve got to question where the its priorities lie.