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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-07-12 Daily Xml
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RE-ENGAGE YOUTH SERVICES

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (15:29): It is with pleasure this afternoon that I rise to congratulate Re-Engage Youth Services from Christies Beach on being nominated as one of the top workplaces in Australia. In the Business Review Weekly recent awards, Re-Engage Youth Services was No. 43. It was one of only two South Australian workplaces to be so nominated and the only charity out of the top 50 to be recognised in this way. I wish to point out that the member for Kaurna (Minister for Health and Ageing) joins me in congratulating Re-Engage Youth Services and I will be so bold as to speak on behalf of the member for Mawson who is absent, but if only he knew, he would also be congratulating Re-Engage because they are a service that works across the electorates of all three of us.

Re-Engage points out that they strongly believe that they are a better place to deliver quality outcomes for young people and the community by creating a supportive and engaging work culture. With this in mind, they wanted to put their culture to the test by an independent, rigorous study, and to be placed within the top 50 best places to work out of 291 companies Australia-wide is extremely encouraging for everyone in the community sector.

Re-Engage is quite a young organisation. It developed out of the Community Partnerships at Work in the south and Community Partnerships itself is a successor organisation to Southern Futures and FEVER. Many of us in the community have been involved in those organisations over the last 15 or so years. They have 36 employees and provide a range of services to young people in the south. These include managing the Flexible Learning Options programs for several schools, and they have 224 young people for whom they are providing case management support under FLO.

They run a number of courses themselves—about 20—ranging from hair and beauty to introduction to trades to fitness instructor. One of their important programs is Coaching Young People For Success. It is a life, career and performance coaching system and provides resources to schools and youth agencies, so that these organisations themselves can deliver modules that assist young people to design an inspiring life, career and school performance pathway plan from the inside out.

Their clients and stakeholders are schools in the region, training providers, higher education providers, local businesses, industry groups, business associations, all levels of government, young people and their parents, community groups and agencies, volunteers, youth connections providers, youth workers and youth support services. They also provide youth work services to schools that are eligible for support under the federal government's school chaplaincy and youth work program. They are providing such services, I know, to Wirreanda High School and these services are greatly appreciated by the school and are seen as very relevant and very substantial.

There is a long way to go in the south in terms of engaging young people in education. Onkaparinga falls below South Australia and Australia and indeed southern Adelaide in terms of attainment of higher education. Of course, higher education attainment builds on year 12 attainment, so it is extremely important that innovative ways are found to engage young people in school and in successful vocational pathways.

In meeting some of the young people who have been engaged in alternative programs, I find that many of them are indeed very clever young people who are simply not engaged by the delivery mechanisms in schools but that they can go on to be leaders in the community and to develop incredibly successful careers when they are engaged by organisations such as Re-Engage Youth Services.

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