Indigenous Employment Partners

TRUST OBJECTIVES PROJECT OBJECTIVES
Rural and regional Victoria Supporting Aboriginal Victorians in rural and regional locations who are not in the labour force
Reducing inequality Reducing Indigenous disadvantage for the person gaining employment and their immediate and extended family.
Building organisational capacity Increasing the capacity of Indigenous Employment Partners to increase both the number of job-ready Indigenous workers and potential employers.
Collaboration and partnership Social Traders, Gunung-Willam-Balluk Centre, Yenbena, Federation University’s Indigenous unit and Dulka Yuppata

Image From left: Indigenous Employment Partners founders Dennis Batty, Sara Stuart and Nicole Findlay at IEP's NAIDOC Week ‘Strong Sistas’ lunch, celebrating the role women play in keeping our Indigenous communities safe and strong.

According to the ABS, there are 12,000 Aboriginal Victorians currently not in the labour force, and disengaged from government services and supports. Indigenous Employment Partners will identify and work with individuals to determine their vocational requirements, upskill them and link them to employers.

Indigenous Employment Partners (IEP) is an Aboriginal operated social enterprise with a mission to provide culturally appropriate employment, recruitment and training services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the organisations who employ them. This project will create a database of Victorian Aboriginal people who wish to participate in the workforce but are disengaged from government programs.

Snapshot:

  • Reasons for the lack of connection with government education and employment programs and support are complex, historical and inter-generational, and can lead to poverty, homelessness and drug and alcohol addictions.
  • IEP will use its successful Get Ready 4 Work (GR4W) program. This is a non-accredited Indigenous-specific vocational work readiness program which has been running successfully for more than 10 years and has a program-job placement success rate of 80%.
  • Through GR4W, employers are offered a fully supported end-to-end recruitment service, packaged and designed to support both the Indigenous employee and the employer. The employee is supported to stay in the job and the employer is supported to develop an inclusive and welcoming culture for all staff.
  • The program will be rolled out in stages across Victoria over three years, matching participants to job vacancies and assisting them through the application process and 26 weeks of supported employment.
  • Vocational training or upskilling will be undertaken by culturally safe training providers Gunung-Willam-Balluk Centre, Yenbena, FedUni Indigenous unit and Dulka Yuppata.
  • The three-year project anticipates adding 2,000 people to IEP’s job matching database.
  • The project will be sustained after HMSTrust’s funding period on a fee-for-service basis from IEP employer clients.

indigemployment.com.au

Uploaded 24 September 2018