[Sub ID 4653] Intensive support for young Indigenous mothers (Jacaranda Community Centre)

Submission ID: 4653
Organisation name: JACARANDA COMMUNITY CENTRE
Contact name: Mrs LYNDSEY FITZGERALD
State: WA
Contact email: lyndsey@jacarandacc.org.au
Contact number: 08 9477434

Which priority group of the Try, Test and Learn Fund does your idea support?
Young parents

What need or issue are you trying to address?
Jacaranda is engaged with the Aboriginal Community and has 50% Aboriginal Staff and over that as Management Committee. Jacaranda uses Aboriginal Community consultation and surveys for its design process. Results from this and anecdotal evidence show that it is clear that Aboriginal young parents are not engaging with Main Stream services to the extent needed to ensure that they and their children do not become a statistic of what isn’t working with Closing the Gap.

Target group will be young Aboriginal parents that are welfare dependent who will be supported to increase their capacity to improve their family wellbeing. These people are already at risk of increased long term welfare dependency as prior to becoming a parent they were already welfare dependent and generations of their family are welfare dependent. This means that they maybe at higher risk of children being taken into care or the circle of welfare dependency continuing from their generation to that of their children.

We will work with the target group to ensure that this doesn’t happen and that they have adequate parenting, housing, job readiness, education and skill training, child care to effect long term sustainable change and reduction in intergenerational welfare dependence.

What is your idea?
Moordidjabiny Djoowak (becoming strong future generation)

Young Aboriginal mothers will be self referred or referred through organisations or Centrelink that had been on welfare continuously and had significant issues that impacted on their ability to move forward in the areas listed in Question 2. Workers will work intensively with a number of Young Aboriginal parents and identify their barriers and engage with the families to look at training, and employment but prior to that they may need parenting, D/V, drug and alcohol support, adequate resources and sometimes basic education skills. we understand that although they may come from a large family background they find that once becoming a sole parent or young parent they are often socially isolated and anxious about the role of being a parent and dealing with all the social barriers that are preventing them from moving forward and eventually finding suitable sustainable employment while bringing up a family.

The program will be outcomes based and each family will have a case management plan which will be reviewed regularly. There will be the option of small group work to reduce social isolation and development new skills in a friendly and safe environment. Information will be collected to see what is working and what isn’t to allow for progress to occur. it will also allow whole of Government to understand what is needed for generational change.

Where appropriate the agency will work with other agencies for additional specialised assistance.

It will be holistic and collocate with other Aboriginal services and community services that we offer.