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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-07-03 Daily Xml
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MENTORING EP

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (15:28): I rise today to talk about an initiative program that I have spoken about previously in this place. The program is known as Mentoring EP. I particularly wanted to talk about it again today because quite recently the program was a winner of the 2013 Andamooka Community Project Award. My congratulations go to them. I also inform the house that I am the patron of this particular program, which I am pleased to be associated with. The award recognises the innovation and resourcefulness of a community. It highlights the benefits that are gained when a local community works together in a voluntary capacity to bring about improvements that all can share, and I think this program fits this criterion particularly well.

Since its inception in 2009, Mentoring EP has had a pivotal role in supporting the growth of community youth mentoring programs. There have been over 130 community mentors and over 150 youth participating in this program, with a current level of 55 mentors mentoring over 60 young people. I know, as recently as yesterday, that there was a training program for new mentors. The mentors are gained from all walks of community life: those people who are sometimes retired or in the middle of busy careers, and other times quite young, having only just left school themselves, but they are quite happy to contribute and play a role in mentoring.

At this point in time, they are usually mentoring students from the Port Lincoln High School, but other primary schools in Port Lincoln have been involved. I also understand that the program is looking to extend itself to other Eyre Peninsula communities. There is a steering committee already in place in Ceduna and Cleve, and other smaller communities around the peninsula are investigating the model.

I guess it is fair to say that paramount to the success of this program is an active steering committee. I must mention the instigator, who is Garry Downey. It was Garry Downey who devised the program. He is a mentor coordinator at the Port Lincoln High School. He believed that existing youth mentoring programs would benefit from a collaborative approach in attracting volunteer mentors, community partners and securing additional funding to grow, support and sustain youth mentoring.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe this program is singularly one of the best initiatives I have ever seen. I have to congratulate Garry Downey on his foresight, enthusiasm and active role in this. I am pleased to be the patron. Indicative of the success of this program was the afternoon tea that wound up the program at the end of last year. The thing that indicated the success of the program to me were the number of mentors and mentees who attended the afternoon tea. There was virtually a full cohort who came along to receive their certificates and complete the program at the end of the year.

Long-term research consistently supports the value of a positive role model in a young person's life and there is no doubt, through no fault of their own, that many young people today have difficulty identifying that positive role model. What this program endeavours to do is to provide a role model from outside the family and outside the usual network that a young person finds themselves in. It is somebody who can bring some encouragement and discipline—all sorts of qualities that young children need, not necessarily to stay at school and complete school but really to identify their own skills and develop those skills to a point where they can really build on them and excel in their chosen field.

I understand that Mentoring EP wishes to become an initiative that is sustainable through funding from local, state and federal government sources. In these programs there is always a big role to be played by volunteers, but you can only take that so far. So, I wish the program well in its future endeavours and I am sure that, under the guidance of Garry Downey and the steering committee, they will no doubt be successful in their quest for funding and be able to extend the program much more broadly throughout the Eyre Peninsula and, who knows, maybe even beyond that. Congratulations to Garry and the program. I wish them well in the future.

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