The mothers and children in SalvoConnect’s homelessness programs have often experienced “extraordinary” levels of domestic violence – something children need to be taught how to process in “pea size” pieces, Ms Lefevre said. 

“All kids present differently but that changes again with time, you see a relax,” she said.

“With some children it’s quite physical – their face is scrunched and their body might be hunched or really tense or quite agitated or they’re not talking – and then you see it change.

“A little girl, I’ve been with her for 18 months and it’s only been in the last three or four that she’s actually talking more and smiling and laughing and giggling.”

The Salvation Army’s Walking Home fundraiser next month will raise money for specialist counselling for children who have experienced family violence, homelessness and trauma.

Ms Lefevre, who is SalvoConnect Western’s only children’s support worker, is currently turning away several referrals a month.

Her work is part of a fabric of services at SalvoConnect that provide “so much more than having a roof over your head”, she said. 

“It’s honouring that a person is a whole person and not just someone who needs a bed and somewhere to live.

“Because all of us need more than that - they need what everyone else needs they need human connection, they need love, they need appropriate housing, they need social connectedness and that’s what we try to give them here.

“It’s bringing back the fun, bringing back the joy, taking off the layer of the stress, creating some space in the heaviness and showing the child that’s always there and always has been there.”

Walking Home is on Saturday, November 5 and includes five distances from 36-kilometres (Linton to Ballarat) to 3-kilometres (Lucas to the CBD). 

For more information or to register visit salvationarmy.org.au/walkinghome or contact SalvoConnect Western on 5329 1100. Entry is between $50 and $20 depending on the distance. 

Donations of children’s books to the SalvoConnect Western childcare centre can be dropped at Karinya on Crompton Street, Soldiers Hill.