Pathways to Employment

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (14:42): I seek leave to make a brief—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The honourable minister.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Minister.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: No, this is what happens when members sit there and interject; it then gets out of control. The Hon. Mr Gazzola has the floor.

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA: I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills a question about support to people who are disengaged from community.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA: Unfortunately, there are many people who for various reasons, some of them not of their own doing, are disengaged—

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Brokenshire, there is a member asking a question.

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA: —from community life. This disengagement in turn makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for them to gain the basic skills necessary to connect with education, training and/or employment. Can the minister inform us of any recent announcements about support to people who find themselves in this position?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:43): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. As the honourable member stated, there are people in our communities who do struggle to find work, often due to circumstances that may be beyond their control. This struggle can be due to a wide range of different factors, such as literacy difficulties, lack of personal and social confidence, and/or learning disabilities as well. These may have become issues for them because of poor experiences in the schooling system.

We are all very well aware of the class clown who often uses humour to hide the fact that they have a learning difficulty. It is that person who often, the first chance they can, leaves school because it is such a difficult experience for them. We also see people coming from difficult and/or dysfunctional families or because of issues relating to alcohol and substance abuse. For some, these barriers prevent them from connecting with or accessing local services such as community centres.

Officers from the Department of State Development have worked very closely with Community Centres SA staff to design a pilot project that looks to engage with those who have more or less completely disengaged. The aim of this new $1.14 million-odd personal support program is to work with people who have never done any study or who may have been out of the workforce for a very long period of time, or even those people have never, ever had a job.

This government knows the impact that a lack of education, a lack of confidence and a lack of skills can have on a person's ability to get a job and, just as importantly, to participate in community life. For the people experiencing these impacts, these obstacles can seem insurmountable. Their confidence could be at its lowest ever, and the thought of being around others or trying to do new things can be incredibly confronting and quite paralysing. This work will help provide those really important first steps for these people towards a new confidence and a new level of engagement in their local communities.

We are piloting in three community centres: Hackham West, Gawler and Glandore. The staff will work with people to develop individual support plans that identify their individual needs and goals. Obviously, these plans will vary from person to person in order to meet their own personal needs and address their own individual challenges. For some, their needs could be really basic things such as having a reason to get up in the morning. Some of these people have very little structure to their life and just having a reason to get up, get dressed and have a shower, to actually leave the house, could be an all important first step for those people. For others it may be being able to make an appointment and then attend that appointment with someone to help them with health issues, for instance.

Staff will work with clients to build their confidence and trust, which will ultimately help them deal with their immediate and personal obstacles. From there they will build on existing strengths and gain other strengths to then attend a course, for instance, that might be able to help them with foundation skills like literacy and numeracy, as well as digital literacy and using computers. We hope this will lead them to pathways to further formal education or training and eventually employment.

It is a program of a lot of small steps, but the pathway is to eventually try to achieve employment. Last week I was able to see and hear how the community gardening and cooking classes were assisting participants with language and listening skills, with how to take notes and follow tasks, and, importantly, with how to work as part of a team.

I was very pleased to launch the program, which offers one-on-one mentoring and support to those who have previously found it extremely difficult to study or find work. I congratulate Community Centres SA and their staff. They are a very passionate, committed and hard-working group of people who have a very strong reputation and solid credentials in that area. They will be responsible for managing these pilots, and I wish them all the very best. I congratulate them on their efforts and look forward to hearing about the future progress of these important pilots.