Mentoring is under the spotlight as a strategy to address the high rates of unemployment and low rates of job retention in Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. One federal government funded strategy has injected $6.1 million dollars into Job Services Australia (JSA, now jobactive) pilot mentoring programs around the country over the past three years. These pilots have had varying rates of success, with the Department of Employment defining a positive outcome as 26 weeks job retention. One such pilot, targeting young people less than 26 years of age, was conducted between 2012 and 2015 in the Inala area of Queensland. This is an urban locale generally known to be suffering significantly high levels of disadvantage, particularly associated with low levels of education, inadequate housing, mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse and imprisonment (Vinson, Rawsthorne, Beavis, and Ericson, 2015).
A series of evaluative studies were conducted by the JSA provider, BoysTown, over the course of the three year pilot. These studies found the mentoring model used on this site, whilst not reaching Department of Employment three year indicators of success, nevertheless achieved a number of important outcomes within the three year timeframe. These included expanded bridging forms of social capital in the local Aboriginal community, achieved through overall increased engagement in the labour market by their young people. This paper describes the phases involved in assisting program clients to achieve increased rates of job seeking, placement and long-term retention, and maps the spectrum of mentoring activities required at each stage.
The paper highlights the breadth of skillsets concealed within the title of 'Indigenous Mentor' under this complex employment services based funding model, and argues that policy goals of increased job retention will be best achieved through the employment of more than one of these highly skilled Indigenous mentors in employment placement service offices. This paper extends existing explorations into the range of barriers to young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's long-term employment prospects. It focuses particular attention on the impact of extended kinship obligations on work attendance and the unique role that Aboriginal mentors are in a position to play in bridging communication breakdowns between employer and employee. It also challenges government policy settings which determine employment 'success' should be measured in terms of six months job retention in a labour market environment of short-term and casual work.
Published abstract.
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