Home | News | Deano, dignity, and having a laugh in the Bourke Street Program

Deano, dignity, and having a laugh in the Bourke Street Program

The Bourke Street Program is a service that supports up to 19 men at a time in planning the next steps of their lives post-rehabilitation.

Dean Southgate (Deano), one of the staff leading the program, remembers a recent moment on a walking tour through the city.

Participants came across a piano in the Queen Victoria Building. Despite not a lick of piano skills between them, the men had a crack at playing it – having a laugh with each other and just enjoying the catharsis of mashing at the keys and having a mini-rockstar moment.

“For that moment in time. They weren’t somewhere dangerous in here,” Deano says, gesturing to his brain.

The moment reveals what’s special about the Bourke Street Program – between the participants, staff, and growing alumni community, there’s a sense of freedom. The freedom to laugh. The freedom to connect. The freedom to be themselves and explore their identities as men in a healthy and supportive environment.

The Bourke Street Program covers everything from re-learning the basics (financial independence, being able to buy your own essentials again – clothes, toiletries, and food, cooking, nutrition, exercise, and more), formal psychological, trauma, and addiction support, and re-connecting with community.

“A lot of the guys who come to us don’t have anything. It’s about dignity. They’re human beings. They’re adults,” says Deano.

“We try and help guys to transition back into society – to be solely independent with themselves, their work, and their family. But more importantly, themselves, so they can present at work. They can be with their family. That they see changes. That it’s not a flash in the pan.”

Some of the most common feedback? “Someone actually listened to me for the first time,” says Deano.

The Bourke Street Program is just one example of the innovative ways staff, volunteers, and the community contribute to The Haymarket Foundation – bridging formal evidence-based practice with lived experience and a unique human touch.

Donate today and read more stories like this in the Haymarket Foundation 2024 Annual Report.