Helping battlers who have fallen on hard times – Courier Mail

When family breadwinners are on the bread line, there are organisations they can turn to for support, writes Fran Metcalf

 

AS executives reap the post-GFC rewards of pay rises and promotions, some two million Australians struggle to make ends meet in jobs which pay less than $15 an hour. And while official unemployment hovers around 5.5 per cent, it's up to three times that rate in some pockets around the country. For many, unemployment has become a family trait, handed from one generation to the next. “In Australia, we have about 680,000 children (about 20 per cent) growing up in jobless families where no resident parent has a job," says The Smith Family chief executive officer Elaine Henry. "Unless we intervene, we will have generations of children who don't understand the world of work or how to aspire to their potential." Henry says The Smith Family sponsors and mentors nearly 7000 children in Queensland, helping them and their families move from primary to secondary to tertiary education or the workforce.

 

"Many parents want their children to have a better life than they've had," she says. For many of Australia's disadvantaged, the barriers to finding work are practical things like clothes, housing and child care. "We also know that people in low paid positions have low expectations of themselves," says University of Sydney Workplace Research Centre senior research analyst Mike Rafferty. "The experience of being poor is not just about having a low income. It also tends to come with lower expectations and less knowledge about how to access job services to change those circumstances."

 

According to Career Industry Council of Australia executive director Peter Tatham, there are plenty of jobs out there. Many unemployed people simply don't know where or how to look. "If you come from a family where no one works, you're not going to know where and how to look for work and you're not going to have the same network as other people who have grown up in a house where everyone goes to university," Tatham says.He says this year's National Career Development Week from May 17-23 will be about encouraging all Australians to develop the skills to manage their careers, learning, work and lives in order to take control of their futures. One

 

Queensland region is already creating its own future. Mission Australia Employment Solutions offices in Beaudesert and Woodridge have challenged local employers to find jobs and training positions for 1000 local unemployed people by Christmas. "We have a 6.7 per cent unemployment rate which is more than 15,000 people in the Logan, Beaudesert and Woodridge region," says Mission Australia Beaudesert and Woodridge business manager Robert Kennard. "They need skills and employment. They then can contribute to the economy in which they live.

 

"If the local area is going to grow, people need to grow." But it's not a simple formula of matching the unemployed with vacant positions. Before job seekers are deemed jobready, Mission Australia assesses them for barriers and provides the necessary support from language classes to clothing, interview skills and substance abuse counselling. "We're a one-stop shop," Kennard says. "It's about helping the battlers in the community who have fallen on hard times, providing them opportunities and assistance. "We work to identify their strengths, key skills and then find employers to give them a go. The  employers we have dealt with have been fantastic because they know what we are trying to do."

 

Taking a holistic view of its clients, Mission Australia taps into a range of community services to help jobseekers get into the workforce, one of which is Brisbane's Dress for Success boutique in Fortitude Valley. Since June 2008, founder Prue Leggoe and a band of volunteers have helped more than 600 disadvantaged Queensland women into Lhe workforce by supplying free business outfits and personalised one-on-one interview training to help them present more confidently. "We see an average of 50 women a month at the moment and quite a lot of them have had a change in circumstances; they had a stroke or sort of injury or mental breakdown," she says. "We also see a lot of single income women who need to get back into the workforce or who have never been in it and we have a lot of previously high achieving people who have had to change direction or have lost confidence because of circumstances."

 

Kennard says Mission Australia also offers apprenticeships, traineeships and a placement service for the young unemployed as well as unpaid employment programs which give job seekers much-needed real experience in the workforce. "It gives them an opportunity to improve their communication skills, build their networks and get used to the routine of working," Kennard says.