Completing the Youth Allowance and ABSTUDY 'Unreasonable to live at home' Statement by Independent Third Party (SY017) 010-06010080

The SY017 form must not be automatically issued to customers. It is only needed if the Over 18 UTLAH team determine the information in the SY015 and SY016 forms do not match.

An independent person should complete this form. They must be nominated by the applicant and know about the applicant's family situation. If the applicant meets the guidelines for independence, then parental income will not affect their rate of Youth Allowance (YA) or ABSTUDY.

To meet the guidelines, it must be unreasonable for the young person to live at home with their parents because of one of the following reasons:

• extreme family breakdown or similar exceptional circumstances
• a serious risk to their physical or mental well-being due to family and domestic violence, sexual abuse or other similar unreasonable circumstances
• the parent(s) are unable to provide the customer with a suitable home because they lack stable accommodation

The customer must not be receiving:

• continuous support (financial or otherwise) from a parent or any other person who is acting as a long-term guardian, or
• continuous payments in the way of income support from the Australian Government or a state or territory authority

A statement may be required from the third party to confirm the information the customer and their parent(s) have provided. Service Officers in the UTLAH Over 18 Assessment team will decide how to proceed if:

• the young person and parent statements do not match, or
• the young person is unable to provide their parents statement

The independent third party for assessment of a UTLAH claim needs to be a person who knows about the customer's family situation and can provide independent comments about why the customer is not able to live with their parent(s). For example they could be a grandparent, family doctor, school counsellor or minister. The customer's partner is not considered to be independent.

When the form is completed, it can either be returned to the customer, or posted directly to Services Australia in the envelope provided.

Customers 18 years and over must provide 2 statement forms:

• one by the young person (SY015), and
• one by the parent(s) (SY016)

A statement completed by an independent third party (SY017) may be requested by the UTLAH Over 18 Assessment team, if it is needed.

A social worker must assess a person's entitlement to the Unreasonable to Live at Home (UTLAH) rate of payment if they are under 18 years of age. For those 18 or over, the claim will be assessed by a Service Officer within the O18 UTLAH Assessment Teams. Under 18 year olds must be booked for an interview with a social worker, whilst those 18 years and over will generally be assessed via statement forms alone.

An independent person (also called 'third party') can be useful to show why a customer is not able to live with their parent(s). This independent person must know about the customer's family situation and be prepared to write about why the customer cannot live with the parent(s). The independent person could be a grandparent, family doctor, school counsellor or minister.

When the form is completed, it can either be returned to the customer, or posted directly to Services Australia in the envelope provided.

Customers 18 years and over must provide 2 statement forms:

• Statement by the young person (SY015)
• Statement by parents (SY016)

If Service Officers within the O18 UTLAH Team requires more information, they may ask for this from an independent person, a 'third party'. Unless the independent person returns it directly to Services Australia, the customer will also need to provide this Statement by an independent third party (SY017).

Youth Allowance and ABSTUDY customers under 18 years applying to be independent, because it is 'unreasonable to live at home' are required to have an interview with a Social Worker. The Social Worker must make the assessment of the young person's entitlement.