The Couch Surfing Secondary Students: The Yarra Ranges Youth Homelessness Prevention Project also shed light on the importance schools had in identifying and intervening early, and recommended schools work closer with welfare services.

The Illawarra-based Denny Foundation provides outreach programs with the aim of helping teens back to school, back home, or to other services that might assist them, and believes ‘‘couch surfing’’ is rising in the region.

Denny executive director Margaret Purcell said the number of youths seeking help was mounting, although many didn’t think they were homeless because they had some kind of roof over their head and thought ‘‘they are invincible’’.

‘‘You can have kids who are homeless for a small span of time, whether it’s due to discipline at home and they don’t want to live under it, or through pressure and they’re broken, or coming from families that are doing it tough and there’s not that connectedness in the family,’’ Ms Purcell said.

‘‘A lot of kids are from good families and they just don’t know who they are ... and are trying to find their place in this world.’’

Ms Purcell said teens she had worked with often saw a bleak future – if any at all, and felt a lack of secure environment greatly affected their schooling.

A spokesman for Lighthouse Youth Housing in Wollongong said many who came to them had experienced homelessness before – often initially leaving home around 14.

‘‘It’s not about blaming people for the situation they’re in ... everyone’s [made bad choices] at some point in life,’’ the spokesman said.

‘‘The face of homelessness has changed ... particularly for young people, where they seemingly think [their current situation] is a stable environment but is actually quite unsafe and very unstable, and not setting them up for success in any way.’’

He said homelessness was often a recurring problem and praised schools for their intervention on tight resources in trying to address issues with their students.

CareWays runs community youth programs within and outside schools and a spokesman said school staff were stretched thin – but the good news was schools were now seen as a safe environment.

‘‘It is often the first port of call to disclose something like abuse, they can’t live at home, or they’re struggling or whatever else,’’ acting chief executive Michael Szafraniec said.

‘‘It is a tough task for schools, I don’t think one service can solve the issue.’’

A new Victorian report delving into the issue of teenage homelessness  has recommended schools and welfare services try harder to  work with young people in early intervention.

This is already happening in the Illawarra due to a rise of young people reaching out for help, with many welfare services and schools pushed to the brink.

Principal of Dapto High School, Andrew FitzSimons, said schools had become more aware of issues beneath the surface – especially since the legal age to leave school in NSW had been raised to 17, doubling the size of many classes.

‘‘The kids would leave school at just about 15 and there were drop-in centres... then the law changed, those kids who used to just disappear from schools are in schools, and we’re doing our best to deal with them,’’ he said.

Mr FitzSimons said they assisted students ‘‘around the edges’’ by having a variety of professionals on hand who could talk through problems, and work closely with other organisations to provide a weekly breakfast club, host clothing pools, and run indigenous support programs.

‘‘We think of ourselves as a full-service school. Of course... everything has to hang off learning, but if a student is hungry or a student is cold or angry or depressed, we’ve also got to have a response.’’

Dapto High is now focused on attendance rates   because they want to  keep the steady mode of support for their pupils. 

‘‘If the kids trust us and the family trusts us and say ‘I’ve got this issue’ and we are connected to all sorts of other organisations then that’s the key to full-service schools.’’