[Sub ID 4679] Co-placed parent and child learning (DALE Young Parents’ School)

Submission ID: 4679
Organisation name: DALE Young Parents’ School
Contact name: Mrs Jaime Boys
State: NSW
Contact email: jaime.boys@spcc.nsw.edu.au

Which priority group of the Try, Test and Learn Fund does your idea support?
Young parents, Young students at risk of long-term unemployment

What need or issue are you trying to address?
A major barrier of re-engagement back into education/study for young parents’, as identified through research conducted by NYARS, 2007, is the lack of affordable or available child care that would support young parents’ build their capacity towards sustainable work and better their long term prospects that a HSC is proven to yield.

Young parents’ who have not completed adequate levels of secondary education, proportionally have a set of complex co-morbid issues that mainstream childcare services generally do not have the capacity to support or manage, such sensitive issues as domestic violence, mental health, financial hardship or homelessness. These issues compound and impact the trust in where/who they place their child with while they study. Consequently, the young parent, who may lack social networks or sufficient family support, finds it too difficult to overcome the multiple complex barriers to education/study.

This is further impeded by the difficulty in navigating the early childcare sector without significant support. Additionally, the caveats around receiving the CCB are not complementary to the 40-week school year which is necessary to support young parent’s engagement in education/study and their capacity to complete their HSC. Findings show that the childcare needs to be tailored sensitively to be cogent to these vulnerabilities vulnerabilities (NYARS, 2007)

What is your idea?
This idea centres around enhancing the integrated educational and holistic services that currently exist to support young parents re-engage back into education/study to complete their HSC. By providing a supported co-placed early learning and training centre for young parents’ and their children, this partnership between the integrated educational service and registered training organization offers a dual generational strategy that engages and educates the child parallel with the young parents’ education/study.

Young parents engage with the alternate young parent learning service through the many supported agencies which provide soft entry points as well as direct referrals to the service.

Upon enrolment, the young parent can choose to study a selection of courses that lead to the achievement of a full non-ATAR HSC. One of these subjects provided would be a Cert III in Early Childcare where workplace training would be available in the onsite Early Learning Centre. This model also allows the young parent to build and maintain sufficient social and emotional skills to transition into the workplace and support their child develop the skills for preschool/school readiness.