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Mountains Youth Services Team – New CEO Announcement

Posted on December 24, 2025 by - Home, Press Release

Mountains Youth Services Team (MYST) appoints new CEO with a continued focus on providing quality services to support the young people in the Blue Mountains

After an extensive and rigorous search and recruitment process, the MYST Board is delighted to announce that Mr Mark Turley has been appointed as MYST’s next CEO. Mark will commence on 5 January 2026.

Mark brings a wealth of successful CEO, executive and senior leadership experience within the charities, private and public sectors. He has a strong track record of change management, team development and strategic planning and implementation. Mark also has proven commercial acumen honed for the charities and private sectors. He has demonstrated capability in developing
partnership arrangements across the charities, private and public sectors both in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Prior to his appointment at MYST, Mark held two CEO roles for over a decade. Previously he was the CEO at Connect Child and Family Services Ltd based in the Blue Mountains and more recently he was the CEO of Living My Way.

Given Mark’s extensive experience and his performance track record, the MYST Board is looking forward to working with Mark to continue to expand and improve the services that MYST provides.

ABOUT MYST

MYST is a youth services charity supporting the development of 12 – 24 year old people in the Blue Mountains areas with relevant, engaging and dynamic programs as well as individual and family counselling, financial counselling, and youth worker advocacy services. MYST programs are designed to build resilience and self-belief as an early intervention strategy to facilitate individual agency and ultimately support young people to get back on track, re-engage positively with the community and lead their best lives possible.


More information about the services MYST offers in the Blue Mountains can be found at www.myst.com.au/what-we-do


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Gratitude and reflection from a young person

Posted on March 26, 2024 by - Home

The first time I encountered mountains youth services team was late 2018, where their drop-in service was operating thrice a week and provided a place of refuge for me after school. I, at 13 years old, attended frequently, and it was here that I formed relationships that were, and are still the foundation of my life. These formative years for me, that I am grateful for MYST to have been a part of, were tumultuous, yet MYSTs youth workers and councillors supported me through unprecedented hurdles such as homelessness, wrongful legal convictions and navigating living alone at 16. 

Without the support and advocacy from past and present youth workers at the service many of my achievements would have been unattainable. my introduction to the service kickstarted a realisation for me, that adults can be empathetic and understanding towards me and I could, in fact, feel safe and comfortable around them for the first time.          

This simple kindness changed everything for me, and with encouragement from the youth workers at the drop-in service, I gained the courage to self advocate. This step would be the one to change my life, my living situation and be a catalyst for developing self advocacy skills in work environments, interpersonal relationships and for the rest of my life. 

At nearly 20, I still attribute so many of my experiences back to MYST, my life would be vastly different had MYST not been open to the community and hosted by talented youth workers who wanted to make a difference.