The issue no one wants to talk about.
posu. exists to end the sexual abuse of children in Australia, and to get the country talking about it, and about what happens to young people when the basics of safety, care, and dignity are not there. Youth justice and out of home care are where the downstream of that problem lands. We start upstream.
Three Meals and a Mattress
Regulation, learning, and trust are only possible once a young person's basic needs and dignity are met. It is a simple premise, and it came from direct clinical work with young people in remote Australia.
A deliberate double meaning
The socks are for the young person. The name is for the rest of us. We all need to pull our socks up for these kids.
No strings, no catch
A pair of socks arrives every month whether the young person had a good month or a terrible one. For many of them, it is the first thing in their life that does not depend on how they behaved, and it becomes an anchor: a fixed point in time they can hold on to when everything else moves.
Supports Bravehearts
Every pair sold supports Bravehearts, so the sock on someone's foot is also part of the work of protecting children from abuse.
Six months, six weeks, six months.
Three phases, each one building on the last, so the care comes first and the learning has somewhere to land.
Monthly socks
A fresh pair of posu. socks arrives every month for six months. No conditions, no reward chart, no catch. A small, reliable signal that someone is in the young person's corner, delivered often enough to be believed.
Six week psychoeducation program
A six week psychoeducation series on how the brain works: anger, anxiety, risk taking, and what a young person can do about them. Plain language, real situations, theirs to keep.
Mentor check ins
Monthly mentoring for six months after the program, with summary and progress reports. It wraps support around the young person and gives posu. longitudinal information on how they are going after the six weeks, rather than a snapshot at the end of them, so the adults around them can see what is changing and the learning does not fade the week the program ends.
The kids, and the people who can back them.
POSU sits under Foundations First Group and is currently running as a pilot with outcome measures in place.
Young people doing it tough
Children and teenagers for whom stability is thin, including those in youth justice and out of home care.
Services and settings
Youth justice, out of home care providers, schools, and youth services who want to bring POSU to the young people they already know.
Sponsors and partners
Organisations that sponsor a young person's monthly socks, and fund the program that comes with them.
Pull your socks up with us.
Buy a pair, sponsor a young person, or bring POSU to your service. Every pair supports Bravehearts.
