Young people like Opal Alara became increasingly isolated when COVID-19 numbers began to swell across Western Australia.
Ms Alara, who relies on Perth Inner City Youth Services for day-to-day social support services, could no longer speak to her social worker face-to-face, or attend regular drop-in sessions with her peers.
"There's a regular routine to going out grocery shopping and having regular appointments and stuff like that," she said.
"And when that went out the window, everything else kind of went out the window."
She said her isolation was deepened as restrictions left her temporarily unemployed.
Face-to-face contact fades
The rising public health risk of COVID-19 has forced many social support services across Perth to limit face-to-face interaction.
From youth services to drug and alcohol supports, services have shifted group sessions and in-person counselling to phone calls and video chats.
Perth Inner City Youth Services tried running its drop-in sessions in an outdoor setting at a park, but some of the young clients felt that lacked the privacy and safety of their usual meeting place in a house.
A fellow client, who did want to be identified, said coming to the house routinely added structure.
"People who have trouble creating their own routines or structure in their lives really benefit from this because it gives them a base to build off," they said.
"It gives them a sense of busyness in their lives."
'We are social animals'
Perth Inner City Youth Services executive officer Andrew Hall said the organisation, which helped locate housing for homeless youth, had pivoted to communicating by phone.
But he said the benefits for many clients were not as strong.
"Young people might already be isolated from their family of origin … or there might be abuse and neglect or abandonment or other things," Mr Hall said.
He said it was challenging for an organisation used to face-to-face service not to go to see that young person.
"We are social animals, we're meant to mix," he said.
Palmerston Association chief executive Emma Jarvis, whose organisation delivers drug and alcohol counselling and rehabilitation services across WA, said young people had been particularly affected by a lack of in-person contact.
"People on the ground, I think they miss that sense of 'we're in it together' in a shared space in the room… in terms of that almost sacred space," she said.
But she said increasing online options had been beneficial for some clients.
Ms Jarvis said a client who previously needed to drive for an hour to her sessions and experienced social anxiety about attending in-person was able to focus on what was important when she could do it from her couch.
"That then built up her courage to go into residential rehab," she said.
"I thought that was profound."
Some benefits to shift online
An Alcoholics Anonymous member, who did not want to be identified, said the shift to using technology had also created new connections between local groups and people around the world.
"In fact, there's a group of women who are going to actually be meeting up in New York in September as a result of online meetings attendance," she said.
She said distance and isolation had long been issues for Alcoholics Anonymous members.
"When I came into AA in 1994, before I had access to the internet, I lived in a country town and stayed sober through an arm of AA called Loners Internationalists Meeting," she said.
"We stayed sober through meetings by mail."
Wungening Aboriginal Corporation was among the organisations that continued in-person drug and alcohol services throughout the pandemic's WA peak, but with reduced numbers.
General manager Awhiora Nia Nia said it was important to keep some in-person services running because, with so many other services having closed or reduced their numbers, some homeless clients had no other place to go.
"A lot of [alcohol and other drugs] clients also have mental health issues, so I think it would have impacted negatively in terms of the mental health," she said.
Meanwhile, Perth Inner City Youth Services' face-to-face drop-in sessions restarted in late May as COVID-19 infection rates started to decline.
Ms Alara attended the first in-person session.
"It's really refreshing to be honest, like seeing people I haven't seen in weeks," she said.
"Having this to do in the mornings doesn't feel like a chore, but it makes other things easier, as well.
"And it's just a really lovely environment."
